THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


""A***"^ """""  - 


itto  (fata  uf  Itetraite. 

*+J  ^tO 


T  H  I  R'D 


GALLERY  OF  PORTRAITS. 


BY 


GEORGE    GILFILLAN, 


NEW   YORK  : 
SHELDON,    LAMPORT    AND    BLAKEMAN, 

115    NASSAU    STREET. 
MDCCCLV. 


JOHN  J.  REED,  PRINTER, 
16  Spruce-street. 


College 
Library 


3 

CONTENTS. 


A    FILE    OF    FRENCH   REVOLUTIONISTS. 

Page 

MlRABEAU,  .  . 13 

MARAT,  ROBESPIERRE,  AND  DANTON,         .         .         .         .21 

VEKGNIAUD,         ........       32 

NAPOLEON, 38 

A     CONSTELLATION    OF    SACRED    AUTHORS. 

EDWARD  IRVING, 52 

ISAAC  TAYLOR, 67 

ROBERT  HALL, 76 

DR.  CHALMERS, 85 

A    CLUSTER    OF  NEW  POETS. 

SYDNEY  YENDYS, 116 

ALEXANDER   SMITH, 130 

J.  STANYAN  BIGG, 143 

GERALD  MASSEY, 163 

MODERN    CRITICS. 

HAZLITT  AND  HALL  AM, 175 

JEFFREY  AND  COLERIDGE, 189 

DELTA, 200 

THACKERAY,  ........  218 

THOMAS  BABINGTON  MACAULAY,          ....  233 


1157507 


VI  CONTENTS. 


MISCELLANEOUS    SKETCHES. 

Page 

CARLYLE  AND  STERLING^ 267 

EMERSON, 281 

NEALE  AND  BTTNYAN, 289 

EDMUND  BURKE, 301 

EDGAR  A.  POE, 325 

SIR  EDWARD  LYTTON  BULWER,         .        .        .        .338 

BENJAMIN  DISRAELI,        ......  352 

PROFESSOR  WILSON, 366 

HENRY  ROGERS, 391 

AESCHYLUS;  PROMETHEUS  BOUND  AND  UNBOUND,        .  422 

SttAKSPEAUBi A  LECTURE, 431 


V 


P  KEF  AC  E, 


IN  issuing  a  THIRD  GALLERY  OF  PORTRAITS,  the 
Author  has  a  few  preliminary  statements  and  explan- 
ations to  make. 

1st.  He  is  aware  that  some  of  his  friends  have  of 
late  begrudged  the  time  he  has  been  devoting  to  peri^ 
odical  writing — -a,  time  which  they  think  might  be  bet- 
ter employed  in  independent  works.  To  them  he 
would  reply,  that  he  is  employed,  slowly,  but  regu- 
larly, in  constructing  a  work  on  our  present  religious 
aspects,  besides  preparing  the  materials  of  others  of  an 
entirely  different  kind  from  any  of  his  preceding,  and 
which  aim,  at  least,  at  paullo  majora  than  many  of 
his  writings  in  the  Magazines  and  Reviews  ;  and,  that 
so  many  are  the  demands  made  upon  his  pen,  by  the 
editors  and  proprietors  of  journals,  that  without  a 


Vlll  PREFACE. 


greater  faculty  of  saying  "  No  "  than  he  possesses,  he 
could  not  altogether  avoid  compliance  with  their  im- 
portunities. The  day  of  a  dignified  withdrawal  from 
that  arena,  and  of  an  entire  devotion  to  weightier  and 
more  congenial  matters,  may  arrive. 

2d,  He  is  induced  to  send  forth  the  following  vol- 
ume for  various  reasons.  His  materials  have  gradually 
increased  upon  his  hands,  to  an  amount  which  renders 
a  selection  from  them  proper  and  easy.  As  he  contri- 
butes to  various  periodicals,  and  as  many  of  his  friends 
have  only  the  opportunity  of  meeting  with  him  in  one 
or  two  of  the  five  or  six  periodicals  where  he  writes, 
it  has  occurred  to  him,  and  the  idea  has  been  confirm- 
ed by  others,  that  a  book  containing  the  cream — if  he 
may  so  call  it — of  his  diversified  lucubrations,  might 
not  be  unacceptable  to  them. 

3d,  His  aim  in  this  volume  has  been  to  secure  the 
two  elements  of  variety,  and  of  patness  to  the  mo- 
ment. The  sketches  here  collected  are  many  of  them 
short — they  include  notices  of  the  most  diverse  varie- 
ties of  mind  ; — from  an  .ZEschylus  to  a  Neale — from  a 
Chalmers  to  a  Marat  ;  they  invite  special  attention  to 
some  of  those  rising  poets,  whom  the  Author  is  proud 


PREFACE.  IX 

to  say  he  has  been  able  somewhat  to  aid  in  their  gen- 
erous aspirations  ;  and  they  seek  to  cast  a  frail  gar- 
land on  the  graves  of  such  illustrious  men,  and  so  re- 
cently removed,  as  Delta  and  Wilson.  Should  the 
charges  of  shortness  and  slightness  be  urged  against 
some  of  these  essays,  he  can  only  point,  on  the  other 
hand,  to  the  papers  on  "  Napoleon,"  "  Macaulay," 
"Burke,"  "  Bulwer,"  "Henry  Eogers,"  "Prome- 
theus," "  Shakspeare,"  and  two  or  three  others,  as 
not  certainly  exposed  to  the  latter  of  these  accusations 
— if  to  either. 

4th,  The  careful  reader  will  notice  in  this  new 
volume,  a  striking  diversity  from  its  companion  Gal- 
leries in  one  important  particular — he  means,  a  certain 
change  of  in  his  spirit,  tone,  and  language  toward  the 
celebrated  men  who  at  present  lead  the  armies  of 
Modern  Scepticism.  This  change  has  repeatedly  been 
charged  against  him,  and  ascribed  to  motives  of  a  per- 
sonal and  unworthy  kind.  Such  motives  he  distinctly 
and  strongly  disclaims.  With  these  men  he  was  never 
intimate  ;  their  opinions  he  never  held  ;  of  their  pre- 
sent estimate  of,  or  feelings  toward  himself  he  cares 
and  knows  nothing  ;  but  he  is  willing  to  grant  that 


X  PREFACE. 

the  longer  he  has  read  their  works,  and  watched  the 
tendency  of  their  opinions,  the  more  profoundly  has  he 
been  impressed  with  a  sense  of  the  hopelessness  of  ob- 
taining any  more  light  or  good  from  such  sources,  and 
of  the  extremely  pernicious  influences  which  they,  wit- 
tingly or  not,  have  exerted,  and  are  still  exerting, 
upon  the  mind  of  this  country.     Those  who  will  take 
the  trouble  of  reading  his  papers  on  "  Carlyle's  Ster- 
ling"   and    "Emerson"    will    understand  what    he 
means.     He  has  not,  in  the  new  edition  of  his  preced- 
ing works,  suppressed  his  former  expressions  of  admi- 
ration for  these  men — let  them  stand — because  they 
were  sincere  at   the   time — because  they   may  serve 
hereafter  as  landmarks  in  his  own  progress — because 
they  never  commend  the  sentiments,  but  only  laud 
too  much  the  spirit,  the  intentions,  and  perhaps  the 
genius  of  these  writers — and  because  the  very  energy 
and  earnestness  of  these  laudations  will  prove,  that 
nothing  but  a  very  strong  cause,  and  a  very  profound 
conviction,  could  have  made  him  recoil  from  them  ! 
To  absolute  consistency  he  does  not  pretend  ;  to  hon- 
esty— to  progress — and  to  fidelity  in  his  words  to  his 
thoughts,  he  does,  and  ever  did.     This  will,  and  must 


PREFACE.  XI 


account,  too,  for  his  altered  tone  in  reference  to  the 
literary  merits  of  some  writers  whom  he  had  sketched 
before.  His  mind  no  more  than  his  pen  has  stood 
still  during  the  last  eight  years.  He  commends,  in 
fine,  this  new  volume,  as  he  has  done  his  former  ones, 
to  the  Public,  feeling  persuaded,  that,  as  a  "  true 
thing,"  the  Public  will  welcome  it  ;  and  confident 
that  he  will  find  in  this,  as  in  all  his  former  experi- 
ence, that,  let  cliques  or  coteries  say  or  do  what  they 
please — 

"  The  great  Soul  of  the  world  is  just." 


file  a!  jftmli 


NO.  I.-MIRABEAU. 

ONE  is  sometimes  tempted  to  suppose  that  our  earth  hangs 
between  two  centres,  to  which  she  is  alternately  attracted, 
like  those  planets  which  are  said  to  be  suspended  between 
the  double  stars,  and  that  she  now  nears  a  blue  and  mild,  and 
now  a  blood-red  and  fiery  sun.  There  are  beautiful  days  and 
seasons  which  stoop  down  upon  us  like  doves  from  heaven,  and 
give  us  exquisite  but  short-lived  pleasure,  in  which  our  world 
appears  a  "  pensive,  but  a  happy  place," — the  sky,  the  dome 
of  a  temple  ;  Eden  recalled,  and  the  Millennium  anticipated  : 
we  are  then  within  the  attraction  of  our  milder  Star.  There 
are  other  days  and  seasons,  the  darkness  of  which  is  lighted 
up  by  the  foam  of  general  frenzy,  like  the  lurid  illumination 
lent  by  the  spray  to  the  tossed  midnight  ocean — when  there  is 
a  crying,  not  for  wine,  but  for  blood,  in  the  streets — when  the 
mirth  of  the  land  is  darkened,  and  when  all  hearts,  not  filled 
with  madness,  fail  for  fear.  Such  are  our  revolutionary  eras 
when  our  Ked  Sun  is  vertical  over  us,  shedding  disastrous 
day,  and  portending  premature  and  preternatural  night. 
»  The  value  of  revolutions  lies  more  in  the  men  they  discover, 
than  in  the  measures  they  produce,  j  For  a  superior  being,  how 
grand  and  interesting  the  attitude  of  standing,  like  John,  on 
the  sand  of  the  sea-shore,  and  seeing  the  beasts,  horned  or 
crowned,  fierce  or  tame,  which  arise  from  the  waves  which  re- 
volution has  churned  into  fury,  to  watch  them  while  yet  fresh 
and  dripping  from  the  water,  and  to  follow  the  footprints  of 
their  progress  !  From  the  vantage-ground  of  after-time,  the 


14  A    FILE    OF    FRENCH    REVOLUTIONISTS. 


human  observer  is  able  to  take  almost  a  similar  point  of  view. 
He  has  this,  too,  in  his  favor.  The  lives  of  revolutionists,  as 
well  as  of  robbers,  are  generally  short ;  their  names  are  writ- 
ten laconically  and  in  blood — their  characters  are  intensified, 
and  sharply  defined  by  death — their  footsteps  are  the  few  but 
forcible  stamps  of  desperate  courage  and  recklessness ;  and 
the  artist,  if  at  all  competent  for  the  task  of  depiction,  is 
helped  by  the  terrible  unity  and  concentration  of  his  subject. 
If,  besides,  he  be  fond  of  "  searching  dark  bosoms,"  where  are 
to  be  found  darker  bosoms  than  those  of  revolutionists  ? — if 
he  loves  rock  scenery,  what  rock  like  the  Tarpeian,  toppling 
over  its  Dead  Sea  ? — if  he  loves  to  botanize*  among  the  daring 
flowers  of  virtue,  which  border  the  giddiest  precipices  of  guilt, 
let  him  come  hither — if  he  wishes  to  brace  his  nerves  and 
strengthen  his  eyesight,  and  test  his  faith  by  sights  and  sounds 
of  woe,  here  is  his  field — if  he  wishes  to  be  read,  and  to  send 
down  a  thrill  from  his  red-margined  page  into  the  future,  let 
him  write  worthily  of  revolutionists.  The  "  History  of  Cata- 
line's  Conspiracy"  has  survived  less  from  its  intrinsic  merit, 
than  because  it  records  the  history  and  fate  of  one  who  aspired 
to  be  a  revolutionist  on  a  large  scale,  although  he  succeeded 
only  in  becoming  the  broken  bust  of  one. 

One  motive  in  the  present  series  is  somewhat  different  from 
any  we  have  now  stated.  We  formerly  drew  portraits  of  God's 
selected  and  inspired  men.  To  bring  out,  by  contrast,  the 
color  and  tone  of  these,  we  are  tempted  now  to  draw  faithfully, 
yet  charitably,  the  likenesses  of  some  generally  supposed  to  be 
the  Devil's  selected  and  inspired  men.  Nor  are  we  indifferent, 
at  the  same  time,  to  the  moral  purposes  which  such  painting, 
and  the  contrast  implied  in  it,  may  serve. 

We  begin  with  Mirabeau,  the  first-born  of  the  French  Revo- 
lution— a  revolution  in  himself.  In  any  age  and  country, 
Mirabeau  must  have  been  an  extraordinary  man.  We  may 
wish — the  more  because  we  wish  in  vain — that  he  had  lived  in 
an  age  of  religious  faith,  when  the  solar  centre  of  the  idea  of 
a  Grod  might  have  harmonized  and  subdued  his  cometary  pow- 
ers. Had  he  lived  in  the  time  of  the  Reformation,  he  had 
been  either  a  Huguenot  of  the  Huguenots,  or  a  fiercer  G-uise; 
but,  thrown  on  an  age  and  a  country  of  rampant  denial  and 
licentiousness,  he  must  deny  and  be  lewd  on  a  colossal  scale. 


MIR.ABEAU.  15 


He  was  not,  we  must  remark,  of  that  highest  order  of  minds 
whose  individualism,  approaching  the  infinite,  stands  alone  in 
whatever  age,  and  which  rejects  or  selects  influences  according 
to  its  pleasure.  Mirabeau  belonged  to  that  class  whose  mis- 
sion is  to  exaggerate  with  effect  the  tendency  and  spirit  of 
their  nation  and  period,  and  thus  to  precipitate  either  their 
sublimation  or  their  reductio  ad  absurdum.  In  him  the  French 
beheld  all  their  own  peculiarities,  passions,  and  powers  magni- 
fied into  magnificent  caricature,  even  as  they  had  seen  them 
exhibited  on  a  miniature  scale  in  Voltaire ;  and  hence  their 
intoxicated  admiration,  and  their  wild  sorrow  at  his  death. 
When  he  fell,  it  was  as  the  fall  of  the  statue  on  the  summit 
of  their  national  column. 

Some  of  Mirabeau's  admirers  speak  of  him  as  if  he  were 
something  better  than  a  French  idol — as  if  he  partook  of  a 
universal  character — as  if  a  certain  fire  of  inspiration  burned 
within  him,  classing  him  with  Burns,  and  elevating  him  far 
above  Burke.  We  cannot,  we  must  confess,  see  any  such 
stamp  of  universality  on  his  brow,  or  rod  of  divination  in  his 
hand.  Of  all  Frenchmen  (and  he  was  hardly  one,)  Rousseau 
alone  appears  to  us  to  have  so  risen  out  of  French  influences  as  to 
have  caught  on  his  wings  an  unearthly  fire,  not  indeed  stream- 
ing down  from  heaven,  but  streaming  up  from  hell.  His  was 
a  Pythonic  frenzy.  He  spake  to  the  ear  of  humanity  falsely 
often,  but  earnestly  and  powerfully  always.  His  dress  might 
be  that  of  a  harlequin,  but  his  bosom  was  that  of  a  man  fana- 
tically in  earnest.  He  was  the  most  sincere  man  France  ever 
reared.  To  a  pitch  of  prophetic  fury,  Mirabeau  neither  rose 
by  nature  like  Rosseau,  nor,  like  Burke,  was  stung  by  circum- 
stances. He  could  at  all  times  manage  his  thunderbolts  with, 
consummate  dexterity,  could  husband  his  enthusiasm,  ard 
never  allowed  himself  to  be  carried  away  all-powerful  in  his 
very  helplessness  upon  the  torrent  he  had  stirred.  He  had 
genius  hung  up  on  the  armory  of  his  mind,  and  could  upon 
occasion  take  down  the  bright  weapon  and  dye  it  in  blood ; 
but  genius  never  had  him  like  a  spear  in  its  blind  and  awful 
grasp. 

Which  quality  of  the  Frenchman  was  wanting  in  Mirabeau  ? 
The  versatility,  levity,  brilliance,  instability,  irritability,  volu- 
bility, the  enthusiasm  of  moments,  the  coldness  of  years,  the 


16  A    FILE    OF    FUEXCII    REVOLUTIONISTS. 


immorality,  now  springing  from  tempestuous  passions,  and 
now  from  the  cool  conclusions  of  atheism,  the  intuitive  under- 
standing, the  declamatory  force  of  the  genuine  Gaul,  were  all 
found  in  him,  but  all  expanded  into  extraordinary  dimensions 
through  the  combustion  of  his  bosom,  and  all  pointed  by  the 
romantic  circumstances  of  his  story.  His  originality,  like 
Byron's,  lay  principally  in  that  wild  dark  blood  which  had  run 
down  through  generations  of  semi-maniacs,  till  in  him  it  was 
connected  with  talents  as  wondrous  as  it  was  hot. 

Mirabeau,  as  the  basis  of  his  intellectual  character,  possessed 
intuitive  sagacity,  and  sharp  common  sense.  He  was  "  all 
eye."  His  very  arm  outstretched,  and  finger  up-pointed, 
seemed  to  see.  No  gesture,  no  motion  of  such  a  man,  is  blind 
or  insignificant.  His  very  silence  is  full  of  meaning ;  his 
looks  are  as  winged  as  the  words  of  others.  Mirabeau's  in- 
sight was  sharpened  by  experience,  by  calamity,  by  vice,  by 
the  very  despair  which  had  once  been  the  tenant  of  his  bosom. 
"  The  glance  of  melancholy  is  a  fearful  gift."  Add  the  intel- 
lect of  a  fallen  demi-god  to  the  savage  irritation  of  a  flayed 
wild  beast,  and  the  result  shall  be  the  exasperated  and  hideous 
penetration  of  a  Mirabeau.  The  rasping  recollections  of  his 
persecuted  childhood  and  wandering  youth,  the  smouldering 
ashes  of  his  hundred  amours,  the  "  sweltered  venom"  collected 
in  his  long  years  of  captivity,  along  with  his  uncertain  pros- 
pects and  unsettled  principles,  had  not  only  hardened  his 
heart,  but  had  given  an  unnatural  stimulus  to  his  understand- 
ing, which  united  the  coherence  of  sanity  with  the  cunning, 
power,  and  fury  of  madness.  This  wondrously  endowed  and 
frightfully  soured  nature  was  by  the  Kevolution — its  incidents, 
adventures,  and  characters — supplied  with  an  abundance  of 
food  sure  to  turn  to  poison  the  moment  it  was  swallowed,  and 
to  nourish  into  keener  activity  his  perverted  powers. 

To  counterbalance  this  strongly-stimulated,  self-confident, 
and  defiant  intellect,  there  was  little  or  no  moral  sense. 
Whether,  as  we  have  heard  it  alleged  of  certain  characters, 
omitted  in  his  composition,  or  burned  out  of  him  by  the  com- 
bined fires  of  cruelty  on  the  part  of  his  father,  and  excess  on 
his  own,  we  cannot  say,  but  it  did  become  microscopically 
small.  Indeed,  it  seems  to  us  to  have  been  a  most  merciful 
arrangement  for  Mirabeau's  fame,  that  he  died  before  the  revo- 


MIRABEAU.  17 


lutiouary  panic  had  come  to  its  height.  In  all  prc  bability,  he 
would  have  acted  the  sanguinary  tyrant  on  a  larger  scale  than 
any  of  the  terrorists  ;  for  France  had  come  to  such  an  apoplec- 
tic crisis,  that  blood  must  relieve  her.  All  that  was  wanted 
was  a  hand  unprincipled  and  daring  enough  to  apply  the 
lancet.  Who  bolder  and  more  unprincipled  than  Mirabeau  ? 
And  who  had  passed  through  such  an  indurating  and  imbit- 
tering  process  ?  Possessed  of  a  thousand  wrongs,  steeled  by 
atheism,  drained  of  humanity,  he  had  undoubtedly  more  wis- 
dom, culture,  and  self-command,  than  his  brother  revolution- 
ists, and  would  have  been  a  butcher  of  genius,  and  scattered 
about  his  blood  (as  Virgil  is  said  to  do  his  dung  in  the  G-eor- 
gics)  more  elegantly  and  gracefully  than  they.  But  in  him, 
too,  slumbered  the  savage  cruelty  of  a  Marat,  and  in  certain 
circumstances  he  would  have  been  equally  unscrupulous  and 
unsparing. 

Mirabeau's  imagination  has  been  lavishly  panegyrised.  It 
does  not,  we  think,  so  far  as  we  have  been  able  to  judge  from 
the  specimens  we  have  seen,  appear  to  have  been  very  copious 
or  creative.  Its  figures  were  striking  and  electrical  in  effect 
rather  than  poetical ;  they  were  always  bold,  but  never  beau- 
tiful, and  seldom,  though  sometimes,  reached  the  sublime. 
The  grandest  of  them  will  be  familiar  to  our  readers  :  "  When 
the  last  of  the  Grracchi  expired,  he  flung  dust  towards  heaven, 
and  from  this  dust  sprung  Marius !  Marius,  less  great  for 
having  exterminated  the  Cimbri,  than  for  having  prostrated  in 
Rome  the  power  of  the  nobility."  A  little  imagination  goes 
a  far  way  in  a  Frenchman.  Edmund  Burke  has  in  almost 
every  page  of  his  "  Regicide  Peace,"  ten  images  as  bold  and 
magnificent  as  this,  not  to  speak  of  his  subtle  trains  of 
thinking  which  underlie,  or  of  those  epic  swells  of  sustained 
splendor,  which  Mirabeau  could  not  have  equalled  in  madness, 
in  dreams,  or  in  death. 

The  oratory  of  Mirabeau  seems  to  have  been  the  most  im- 
posing of  his  powers.  Manageable  and  well  managed  as  a 
consummate  race-horse,  it  was  fiery  and  impetuous  as  a  lion 
from  the  swelling  of  Jordan.  In  the  commencement  of  his 
speeches,  he  often  hesitated  and  stammered ;  it  was  the  fret 
of  the  torrent  upon  the  rock,  ere  it  rushes  into  its  bed  of  wrath 
and  power ;  but  once  launched,  "  torrents  less  rapid  and  less 


18  A  FILL:  OF  FREXCII  REVOLUTIONISTS 


rash."  His  face  as  of  a  "  tiger  in  small-pox" — his  eye  blazing 
with  the  three-fold  light  of  pride,  passion,  and  genius — his 
fiery  gesticulation — -his  voice  of  thunder — the  strong  points  of 
war  he  blew  ever  and  anon — the  strong  intellect,  which  was  the 
solid  basis  below  the  sounding  foam — all  united  to  render  his 
eloquence  irresistible.  His  audiences  felt,  that  next  to  the 
power  of  a  great  good  man,  inspired  by  patriotism,  genius,  and 
virtue,  was  that  of  a  great  bad  man,  overflowing  with  the 
Furies,  and  addressing  Pandemonium  in  its  own  Pandemonian 
speech.  Even  the  dictates  and  diction  of  mildness,  sense,  and 
mercy,  as  they  issued  from  such  lips,  had  an  odd  and  yet 
awful  effect.  It  was,  indeed,  greatly  the  gigantic  but  unludi- 
crous  oddity  of  the  man  that  enchanted  France.  Having  come 
from  prison  to  reign,  smelling  of  the  rank  odors  of  dungeons, 
with  nameless  and  shadowy  crimes  darkening  the  air  around 
him,  with  infamous  books  of  his  composition,  seen  by  the 
mind's  eye  dangling  from  his  side,  there  he  stood,  rending  up 
old  institutions,  thundering  against  kings,  and  deciding  on 
the  fate  of  millions.  What  figure  more  terribly  telling  and 
piquant  could  even  France  desire  ?  Monster-loving  she  had 
ever  been,  but  no  such  magnificent  monster  had  ever  before 
sprung  from  her  soil,  or  roared  in  her  senate-house.  Voltaire 
had  been  an  ape  of  wondrous  gifts ;  but  here  was  a  Creature 
from  beyond  chaos  come  to  bellow  over  her  for  a  season,  and 
unable  and  afraid  to  laugh,  she  was  compelled  to  adore. 

As  an  orator,  few  form  fit  subjects  for  comparison  with 
Mirabeau,  because  few  have  triumphed  over  multitudes  in  spite 
of,  nay,  by  means  of,  the  infamy  of  their  character,  added  to 
the  force  of  their  genius.  Fox  is  no  full  parallel.  He  was 
dissipated,  but  his  name  never  went  through  Europe  like  an 
evil  odor,  nor  did  he  ever  wield  the  condensed  and  Jove-like 
power  of  Mirabeau.  He  was  one — and  not  the  brightest — of 
a  constellation:  the  Frenchman  walked  his  lurid  heaven  alone. 
Sheridan  was  a  dexterous  juggler,  playing  a  petty  personal 
game  with  boy -bowls  ;  Mirabeau  trundled  cannon-balls  along 
the  quaking  ground.  Sheridan  was  common-place  in  his  vices ; 
Mirabeau  burst  the  limits  of  nature  in  search  of  pleasure,  and 
then  sat  down  to  innoculate  mankind,  through  his  pen,  with 
the  monstrous  venom.  As  the  twitch  of  Brougham's  nose  is 
to  the  tiger  face  of  the  Frenchman,  so  the  eccentricity  of  the 


MIKABEAt/.  19 


one  to  the  Herculean  frenzy  of  the  other.  Mirabeau  most, 
perhaps,  resembles  the  first  Caesar,  if  not  in  the  cast  of  ora- 
tory, yet  in  private  character,  and  in.  the  commanding  power 
he  exerted.  That  power  was,  indeed,  unparalleled  ;  for  here 
was  a  man,  ruling  not  creation,  but  chaos ;  here  was  the  old 
contest  of  Achilles  with  the  rivers  renewed ;  here  was  a  single 
man  grappling  in  turn  with  every  subject  and  with  every  party, 
throwing  all  in  succession  himself,  or  dashing  the  one  against 
the  other — snatching  from  his  enemies  their  own  swords — 
hated  and  feared  by  all  parties,  himself  hating  all,  but  fearing 
none — knowing  all,  and  himself  as  unknown  in  that  stormy 
arena  as  a  monarch  in  his  inmost  pavilion — dissecting  all 
characters  like  a  knife,  himself  like  that  knife  remaining  one 
and  indivisible — and  doing  all  this  alone ;  for  what  followers, 
properly  speaking,  save  a  nation  at  a  time,  had  Mirabeau  ? 
We  hear  of  single  men  being  separate  "  estates  ;"  the  language, 
as  applied  to  him,  has  some  meaning. 

It  has  often  been  asked,  What  would  have  been  his  conduct, 
had  he  lived  ?  Some  say  dogmatically,  that  because  he  was 
on  terms  with  the  king  at  the  time  of  his  death,  he  would  have 
saved  the  monarchy ;  while  a  few  suppose  that  he  would  have 
rode  upon  the  popular  wave  to  personal  dominion.  If  it  were 
not  idle  to  speculate  upon  impossibilities,  we  might  name  it 
as  our  impression,  that  Mirabeau  would  have  been,  as  all  his 
life  before,  guided  by  circumstances,  or  impelled  by  passions, 
or  overpowered  by  necessity,  and  become  king's  friend,  or 
king,  as  fate  or  madness  ruled  the  hour.  Perhaps,  too,  the 
revolution  was  getting  beyond  even  his  guidance.  He  might 
have  sought  to  ride  erect  in  the  stirrups,  and  been  thrown ; 
while  Marat  grasped  the  throat  and  mane  of  the  desperate  ani- 
mal with  a  grasp  which  death  only  could  sever.  Perhaps  the 
monarchy  was  not  salvable;  perhaps,  while  seeking  to  con- 
serve this  ripe  corn,  the  sickle  might  have  cropped  the  huge 
head  of  the  defender;  perhaps  the  revolution,  which  latterly 
"  devoured  its  own  children,"  would  have  devoured  him,  leav- 
ing him  the  melancholy  comfort  of  Ulysses  in  the  Cyclop's 
cave — "  Noman  shall  be  the  last  to  be  devoured."  But  all 
such  inquiries  and  peradventures  are  for  ever  vain. 

Mirabeau's  death  was  invested  with  dramatic  interest.  He 
died  in  the  midst  of  his  career  ;  he  sank  like  an  island  ;  he 


20  A    FILE    OK    FRENCH    REVOLUTIONISTS. 


died  while  all  eyes  in  Europe  were   fixed  upon  him ;  ho  died 
while  many  saw  a  crown  hovering  over  his  head ;  he  died,  un- 
discovered, concealing  his   future  plans  in  the  abyss  of  his 
bosom,  and  able  to  "  adjust  his  mantle  ere  he  fell ;"  he  died, 
reluctant  less  at  dying,  than  at  not  being  permitted  to  live. 
All  his  properties  seemed  to  rise  up  around  him  as  he  was 
leaving  the  world.     His  voluptuousness  must  have  one  other 
full  draught :  "  Crown  me  wilh  flowers,  sprinkle  me  with  per- 
fumes, that  I  may  thus  enter  upon  the  eternal  sleep."     His 
levity  must  have  one  more  ghastly  smile :   "  What !"  as   he 
heard  the    cannon   roaring,  "  have  we    the   funeral    ere   the 
Achilles  be  dead  ?"     His  vanity  must   cry  out,  "  they  will 
miss  me  when  I  am  gone.     Ay,  support  that  head ;  would  I 
could  leave  thee  it !"     His  wild  unbelief  must  once  more  flash 
up  like  a  volcano  fading  in  the  dawn :  "  If  that  sun  be  not 
God  he  is  his  cousin-german."     His  intellect  had,  perhaps,  in 
the  insight  of  approaching  death,  passed  from  previous  uncer- 
tainty and  vacillation  to  some  great  scheme  of  deliverance 
for  his  country ;  for  he  said,  "  I  alone  can  save  France  from  the 
calamities  which  on  all  sides  are  about  to  break  upon  her." 
And  having  thus  gathered  his  powers  and  passions  in  full  pomp 
around  his  dying  couch,  he  bade  them  and  the  world  farewell. 
France  had  many  tears  to  shed  for  him ;  we  have  not  now 
one  tear  to  spare.     His  death,  indeed,  was  a  tragedy,  but  not 
of  a  noble  kind.     It  reminds  us  of  the  death  of  one  of  the  evil 
giants  in  the  "  Pilgrim's  Progress,"  with  their  last  grim  looks, 
hard-drawn  breathings,  and  bellowings  of  baffled  pride  and  fury. 
It  was  the  selfish  death  of  one  who  had  led  an  intensely  selfish 
life.     What  grandeur  it  had,  sprung  from  its  melodramatic  ac- 
companiments, and  from  the  mere  size  of  the  departing  un- 
clean spirit.     A  large  rotten  tree  falls  with  a  greater  air  than 
a  small,  whose  core  is  equally  unsound.     Nor  was  the  grief  of 
France  more  admirable  than  the  death  it  bewailed.     It  was 
the  howl  of  weak  dependency,  not  of  warm  love.     They  mourn- 
ed him,  not  for  himself,  but  for  the  shade  and  shelter  he  gave 
them.     Such  a  man  must  have  been  admired  and  feared,  but 
could  not  have  been  sincerely  or  generally  believed.     Mr.  Fox, 
on  the  other  hand,  having  what  Mirabeau  wanted — a  heart — 
fell  amid  the  sincere  sorrows  of  his  very  foes,  and  his  country 
mourned  not  for  itself,  but  for  him,  as  one  mourns  for  a  first-born. 


MARAT,  ROBESPIERRE,  AND  DANTON.  21 


We  were  amused  at  Lamartine's  declaration  about  Mira 
beau  :  "  Of  all  the  qualities  of  the  great  man  of  his  age,  he 
wanted  only  honesty" — a  parlous  want!  Robin  Hood  was  a 
very  worthy  fellow,  if  he  had  been  but  honest.  A  great  man 
deficient  in  honesty,  what  is  he  but  a  great  charlatan,  a  sub- 
lime scamp,  a  Jove-Judas — to  apply,  after  Mlrabeau's  own 
fashion,  a  compound  nick-name  ? 

Such  a  Jove-Judas  was  Mirabeau.  Without  principle, 
without  heart,  without  religion — with  the  fiercest  of  demoniac, 
and  the  foulest  of  human  passions  mingled  in  his  bosom — with 
an  utter  contempt  for  man,  and  an  utter  disbelief  of  God,  he 
possessed  the  clearest  of  understandings,  the  most  potent 
of  wills,  the  most  iron  of  constitutions,  the  most  eloquent  of 
tongues — united  the  cool  and  calculating  understanding  of  an 
arithmetician  to  the  frenzied  energies  and  gestures  of  a  Moe- 
nad — the  heart  and  visage  of  a  Pluto  to  something  resembling 
the  sun-glory  and  sun-shafts  of  a  Phoebus.  Long  shall  his 
memory  be  preserved  in  the  list  of  "  Extraordinary  (human) 
Meteors,"  but  a  still  and  pure  luminary  he  can  never  be 
counted.  Nay,  as  the  world  advances  in  knowledge  and  virtue 
his  name  will  probably  deepen  in  ignominy.  At  present, 
his  image  stands  on  the  plain  of  Dura  with  head  of  gold  and 
feet  of  iron,  mingled  with  miry  clay,  and  surrounded  by  not 
a  few  prostrate  admirers ;  but  we  are  mistaken  if,  by  and  by, 
there  be  not  millions  to  imitate  the  conduct  of  the  undeceived 
revolutionists  (who  tore  down  his  bust,)  and  push  him,  in 
wrath,  off  his  pedestal.  Carlyle  attributes  to  him  with  justice 
an  "  eye,"  but,  though  strong,  it  was  not  single ;  and  is  it  not 
written,  "  If  thine  eye  be  evil,  thy  whole  body  shall  be  full  of 
darkness  ?" 


NO.  K— MARAT,  ROBESPIERRE,  AND  DANTON. 

ONE  obvious  effect  of  the  upheavings  of  a  revolution  is  to 
develop  latent  power,  and  to  deliver  into  light  and  influence 
cast-down  and  crushed  giants,  such  .as  Danton.  But  another 
result  is  the  undue  prominence  given  by  convulsion  and  an- 
archy to  essentially  small  and  meagre  spirits,  who  like  little 


22  A    FILE    OF    FRENCH    II EVOLUTIONISTS. 


men  lifted  up  from  their  feet,  in  the  pressure  of  a  crowd,  are 
surprised  into  sudden  exaltation,  to  be  trodden  down  when- 
ever their  precarious  propping  gives  way.  Revolution  is  a 
genuine  leveller ;  "  small  and  great  "  meet  on  equal  terms  in 
its  wide  grave ;  and  persons,  whose  names  would  otherwise 
have  never  met  in  any  other  document  than  a  directory,  are 
coupled  together  continually,  divide  influence,  have  their  res- 
pective partisans,  and  require  the  stern  crucible  of  death  to 
separate  them,  and  to  settle  their  true  position  in  the  general 
history  of  the  nation  and  the  world. 

Nothing,  indeed,  has  tended  to  deceive  and  mystify  the  pub- 
lic mind  more  than  the  arbitrary  conjunction  of  names.  The 
yoking  together  of  men  in  this  manner  has  produced  often  a 
lamentable  confusion  as  to  their  respective  intellects  and  char- 
acteristics. Sometimes  a  mediocrist  and  a  man  of  genius  are 
thus  coupled  together ;  and  what  is  lost  by  the  one  is  gained 
by  the  other,  while  the  credit  of  the  whole  firm  is  essentially 
impaired.  Sometimes  men  of  equal,  though  most  dissimilar 
intellect,  are,  in  defiance  of  criticism,  clashed  into  as  awkward 
a  pair  as  ever  stood  up  together  on  the  floor  of  a  country  dan- 
cing school.  Sometimes,  for  purposes  of  moral  or  critical 
condemnation,  two  of  very  different  degrees  of  criminality  are 
tied  neck  and  heels  together,  as  in  the  dreadful  undistinguish- 
ing  "  marriages  of  the  Loire."  Sometimes  the  conjunction  of 
unequal  names  is  owing  to  the  artifice  of  friends,  who,  by  per- 
petually naming  one  favorite  author  along  with  another  of  estab- 
lished fame,  hope  to  convince  the  unwary  public  that  they  are  on 
a  level.  Sometimes  they  are  produced  by  the  pride  or  ambition, 
or  by  the  carelessness  or  caprice,  of  the  men  or  authors  them- 
selves. Sometimes  they  are  the  deliberate  result  of  a  shallow, 
though  pretentious  criticism,  which  sees  and  specifies  resem- 
blances, where,  in  reality,  there  are  none.  Sometimes  they 
spring  from  the  purest  accidents  of  common  circumstances, 
common  cause,  or  common  abode,  as  if  a  crow  and  a  thrush 
must  be  kindred  because  seated  on  one  hedge.  From  these, 
and  similar  causes,  have  arisen  such  combinations  as  Drydeii 
and  Pope,  Voltaire  and  Rousseau,  Cromwell  and  Napoleon, 
Southey  and  Coleridge,  Rogers  and  Campbell,  Hunt  and  Ha- 
zlitt,  Hall  and  Foster,  Paine  and  Cobbett,  Byron  and  Shelley, 
or  Robespierre  and  Danton. 


MARAT,  ROBESPIERRE,  AND  CANTON.  23 


In  the  first  histories  of  the  French  Revolution,  the  names 
of  Marat,  Robespierre,  and  Danton,  occur  continually  to- 
gether as  a  triumvirate  of  terror,  and  the  impression  is  left 
that  the  three  were  of  one  order,  each  a  curious  compound  of 
the  maniac  and  the  monster.  They  walk  on,  linked  in  chains, 
to  common  execution,  although  it  were  as  fair  to  tie  up  John 
Ings,  Judge  Jeffreys,  and  Hercules  Furens.  A  somewhat 
severer  discrimination  has  of  late  unloosed  Marat  from  the  other 
two,  and  permitted  Robespierre  and  Danton  to  walk  in  couples. 

Yet,  of  Marat,  too,  we  must  say  a  single  word — "  Marah," 
might  he  better  have  been  called,  for  he  was  a  water  of  bitter- 
ness. He  reminds  us  of  one  of  those  small,  narrow,  inky 
pools  we  have  seen  in  the  wilderness,  which  seem  fitted  to  the 
size  of  a  suicide,  and  waiting  in  gloomy  expectation  of  his  ad- 
vent. John  Foster  remarked,  of  some  small  "malignant"  or 
other,  that  he  had  never  seen  so  much  of  the  essence  of  devil 
in  so  little  a  compass."  Marat  was  a  still  more  compact  con- 
centration of  that  essence.  He  was  the  prussic  acid  among 
the  family  of  poisons.  His  unclean  face,  his  tiny  figure,  his 
gibbering  form,  his  acute  but  narrow  soul,  were  all  possessed 
by  an  infernal  unity  and  clearness  of  purpose.  On  the  clock 
of  the  Revolution — while  Danton  struck  the  reverberating 
hours — while  Robespierre  crept  cautiously  but  surely,  like 
the  minute  hand,  to  his  object — Marat  was  the  everlasting 
"  tick-tick"  of  the  smaller  hand,  counting,  like  a  death-watch, 
the  quick  seconds  of  murder.  He  never  rested ;  he  never 
slumbered,  or  walked  through  his  part ;  he  fed  but  to  refresh 
himself  for  revolutionary  action  ;  he  slept  but  to  breathe  him- 
self for  fresh  displays  of  revolutionary  fury.  Milder  mood, 
or  lucid  interval,  there  was  none  in  him.  The  wild  beast, 
when  full,  sleeps;  but  Marat  was  never  full — the  cry  from 
"  the  worm  that  dieth  not,"  within  him,  being  still  "  Grive, 
give,"  and  the  flame  in  his  bosom  coming  from  that  fire  which, 
is  "  never  to  be  quenched." 

If,  as  Carlyle  seems  sometimes  to  insinuate,  earnestness  be 
in  itself  a  divine  quality,  then  should  Marat  have  a  high  place 
in  the  gallery  of  heroes ;  for,  if  an  earnest  angel  be  admirable, 
chiefly  for  his  earnestness,  should  not  an  earnest  imp  be  ad- 
mirable too  ?  If  a  tiger  be  respectable  from  his  unflinching 
oneness  of  object,  should  not  a  toad,  whose  sole  purpose  is  to 


24  A    FILE    OF    FRENCH    REVOLUTIONISTS. 


spit  sincere  venom,  crawl  amid  general  consideration  too  ?— 
But  we  suspect,  that  over  Carlyle's  imagination  the  quality  of 
greatness  exerts  more  power  than  that  of  earnestness.  A 
great  regal-seeming  ruffian  fascinates  him,  while  the  petty 
scoundrel  is  trampled  on.  His  soul  rises  to  mate  with  the 
tiger  in  his  power,  but  his  foot  kicks  the  toad  before  it,  as  it 
is  lazily  dragging  its  loathsomeness  through  the  wet  garden- 
beds.  The  devils,  much  admired  as  they  stood  on  the  burn- 
ing marl,  lose  caste  with  him  when,  entering  the  palace  of 
Pandemonium,  they  shrink  into  miniatures  of  their  former 
selves.  Mirabeau,  with  Carlyle,  is  a  cracked  angel ;  Marat, 
a  lame  and  limping  fiend. 

Some  one  has  remarked,  how  singular  it  is  that  all  the 
heroes  of  the  French  Revolution  were  ugly.  It  seems  as  cu- 
rious to  us,  that  they  were  either  very  large  or  very  little  per- 
sons. Danton  was  a  Titan ;  Mirabeau,  though  not  so  tall,  was 
large,  and  carried  a  huge  head  on  his  shoulders ;  whereas 
Marat  and  Napoleon  were  both  small  men.  But  the  French 
found  their  characteristic  love  of  extremes  gratified  in  all  of 
them.  Even  vice  and  cruelty  they  will  not  admire,  unless 
sauced  by  some  piquant  oddity,  and  served  up  in  some  extra- 
ordinary dish.  A  little,  lean  corporal  like  Napolean,  con- 
quering the  Brobdtgnagian  marshals  and  emperors  of  Europe, 
and  issuing  from  his  nut-like  fist  the  laws  of  nations ;  a  grin- 
ning death's-head  like  Voltaire,  frightening  Christendom  from 
its  propriety,  were  stimulating  to  intoxication.  But  their 
talent  was  gigantic,  though  their  persons  were  not ;  whereas, 
Marat's  mind  was  as  mean,  and  his  habits  as  low,  as  his  sta- 
ture was  small,  and  his  looks  disgustful.  Here,  then,  was  the 
requisite  French  ragout  in  all  its  putrid  perfection.  A  scarecrow 
suddenly  fleshed,  but  with  no  heart  added — his  rags  fluttering, 
and  his  arms  vibrating  in  a  furious  wind — became,  for  a  season, 
the  idol  of  the  most  refined  and  enlightened  capital  in  Europe. 

Had  we  traced,  as  with  a  lover's  eye,  the  path  of  some 
beautiful  flash  of  lightning,  passing,  in  its  terrible  loveliness, 
over  the  still  landscape,  and  seen  it  omitting  the  church  spire, 
which  seemed  proudly  pointing  to  it  as  it  passed — sparing  the 
old  oak,  which  was  bending  its  sacrificial  head  before  its  com- 
ing— touching  not  the  tall  pine  into  a  column  of  torch-like 
flame,  but  darting  its  arrow  of  wrath  upon  the  scarecrow,  in 


MARAT,  nOBESriEURE,  AND    DANTOfc.  25 


the  midst  of  a  bean-field,  and  by  the  one  glare  of  grandeur  re- 
vealing, ere  it  consumed,  its  "  looped  and  ragged"  similitude 
to  a  man,  its  aspiring  beggary,  and  contorted  weakness — it 
•would  have  presented  us  with  a  fit  though  faint  image  of  the 
beautiful  avenger,  the  holy  homicide,  the  daughter  of  Neme- 
sis by  Apollo — Charlotte  Corday — smiting  the  miserable 
Marat.  Shaft  from  heaven's  inmost  quiver,  why  wert  thou 
spent  upon  such  a  work  !  Why  not  have  ranged  over  Europe, 
in  search  of  more  potent  and  pernicious  tyrants,  or,  at  least, 
have  darted  into  the  dark  heart  of  liobespierre  ?  Such  ques- 
tions are  vain ;  for  not  by  chance,  but  by  decree,  it  came 
about  that  a  death  from  a  hand  by  which  a  demi-god  would 
have  desired  to  die,  befell  a  demi-man,  and  that  now  this 
strange  birth  of  nature  shines  on  us  for  ever,  in  the  light  of 
Charlotte  Corday's  dagger  and  last  triumphant  smile. 

Yet,  even  to  Marat,  let  us  be  merciful,  if  we  must  also  be 
just.  A  monster  he  was  not,  nor  even  a  madman  ;  but  a  man- 
uikin  of  some  energy  and  acuteness,  soured  and  crazed  to  a 
preternatural  degree,  and  whose  fury  was  aggravated  by  pure 
fright.  He  was  such  a  man  as  the  apothecary  in  "  Romeo 
and  Juliet"  would  have  become  in  a  revolution ;  but  Marat, 
instead  of  dealing  out  small  doses  of  death  to  love-sick  tailors 
and  world-wearied  seamstresses,  rose  by  the  force  of  despc-v., 
tion  to  the  summit  of  revolutionary  power,  cried  out  for  eighty 
thousand  heads,  and  died  of  the  assault  of  a  lovely  patriotic  maid- 
en, as  of  a  sun-stroke.  And  yet  Shakspere  has  a  decided pcn- 
cliant  for  the  caitiff  wretch  he  so  graphically  paints,  and  has 
advertised  his  shop  to  the  ends  of  the  earth.  So,  to  vary  the 
figure,  let  us  pity  the  poor  vial  of  prussic  acid,  dashed  down 
so  suddenly,  and  by  so  noble  a  hand,  whom  mortals  call  Ma- 
rat. Nature  refuses  not  to  appropriate  to  her  bosom  her  spilt 
poisons',  any  more  than  her  shed  blooms — appropriates,  how- 
ever, only  to  mix  them  with  kindlier  elements,  and  to  turn 
them  to  nobler  account.  And  let  us,  in  humble  imitation, 
collect,  and  use  medicinally,  the  scattered. drops  of  poor  acrid 
Marat. 

Marat  was  essentially  of  the  canaille — a  bad  and  exaggera- 
ted specimen  of  the  class,  whom  his  imperfect  education  only 
contributed  to  harden  and  spoil.  Robespierre  and  Danton  be- 
long, by  birth  and  training,  by  feelings  and  habits,  to  tho  mid- 


FILE    OF   FllENC'H    REVOLUTIONISTS, 


die  rank — Robespierre  sinking,  in  the  end,  below  it,  through 
his  fanaticism,  and  Danton  rising  above  it,  through  his  genius 
and  power.  Both  were  "  limbs  of  the  law,"  though  the  one 
might  be  called  a  great  toe,  and  the  other  a  huge  arm ;  and, 
without  specifying  other  resemblances,  while  Marat  lost  his 
temper  and  almost  his  reason  in  the  melee  of  the  Revolution, 
both  Robespierre  and  Danton  preserved  to  the  last  their  self- 
possession,  their  courage,  and  the  full  command  of  their  intel- 
lectual faculties. 

Robespierre  reminds  us  much  of  the  worst  species  of  the  old 
Covenanter — a  picture  of  whom  is  faithfully  drawn  by  Sir 
Walter  in  Burley,  and  iu  our  illustrious  clansman — the  "  gift- 
ed Gilfillan."  Such  beings  there  did  exist,  and  probably  ex- 
ist still,  who  united  a  firm  belief  in  certain  religious  dogmas 
to  the  most  woful  want  of  moral  principle  and  human  feeling, 
and  were  ready  to  fight  what  they  deemed  God's  cause  with 
the  weapons  of  the  devil.  Their  cruelties  were  cool  and  sys- 
tematic ;  they  asked  a  blessing  on  their  assassinations,  as 
though  savages  were  to  begin  and  end  their  cannible  meals 
with  prayer.  Such  men  were  hopelessly  steeled  against  every 
sentiment  of  humanity.  Mercy  to  their  enemies  seemed  to 
them  treason  against  God.  No  adversary  could  escape  from 
them.  A  tiger  may  feed  to  repletion,  or  be  disarmed  by 
drowsiness ;  but  who  could  hope  to  appease  the  ghost  of  a 
tiger,  did  such  walk  ?  Ghosts  of  tigers,  never  slumbering, 
never  sleeping,  cold  in  their  eternal  hunger,  pursuing  their 
relentlessly  devouring  way,  were  the  religious  fanatics — the 
Dalziels  and  Claverhouses,  as  well  as  the  Burleys  and 
Mucklewraths,  of  the  seventeenth  century. 

To  the  same  order  of  men  belonged  Robespierre,  modified, 
of  course,  in  character  and  belief,  by  the  influences  of  his 
period.  The  miscalled  creed  of  the  philosophers  of  France  in 
the  eighteenth  century,  which,  with  many  of  themselves,  was  a 
mere  divertisement  to  their  intellects,  or  a  painted  screen  for 
their  vices,  sunk  deep  into  the  heart  of  Robespierre,  and  be- 
came a  conviction  and  a  reality  with  him.  So  far  it  was  well ; 
but,  alas !  the  creed  was  heartless  and  immoral,  as  well  as 
false.  Laying  down  a  wide  object,  it  permitted  every  license 
of  vice  or  cruelty  in  the  paths  through  which  it  was  to  be 
gained.  Robespierre  became,  accordingly,  the  worst  of  all 


MARAT,  ROBESPIERRE,  AND  DANTON.          27 


einners — a  sinner  upon  system — a  political  Antinomian, 
glorying  in  bis  shame,  to  whom  blood  itself  became  at  last  au 
abstraction  and  a  shadow ;  the  guillotine  only  a  tremendous 
shuttle,  weaving  a  well-ordered  political  web ;  ajid  the  tidings 
of  the  fall  of  a  thousand  heads  agreeably  indifferent,  as  to  the 
farmer  the  news  of  a  cleared  hay  or  harvest  field. 

That  Eobespierre  had  at  the  first  any  appetite  for  blood,  is 
not  now  asserted  by  his  bitterest  foe.  That  he  ever  even  ac- 
.  quired  such  a  monstrous  thirst,  seems  to  us  very  unlikely. 
His  only  thought  would  be,  at  the  tidings  of  another  death, 
"Another  sacrifice  to  my  idea;  another  obstacle  lifted  out 
of  its  way."  Nero's  wish  that  his  enemies  had  but  "  one 
neck,"  was,  we  think,  comparatively  a  humane  wish.  It 
showed  that  he  had  no  delight  in  the  disgusting  details,  but 
only  in  the  secure  result  of  their  destruction.  He  is  the  un- 
natural monster  who  protracts  the  fierce  luxury,  and  sips  his 
deep  cup  of  blood  lingeringly,  that  he  may  know  the  separate 
flavor  of  every  separate  orop.  Robespierre,  no  more  than 
Nero,  was  up  to  such  delicately  infernal  cruelty. 

Carlyle  frequently  admits  llobespierre's  sincerity,  and  yet 
rates  him  as  little  other  than  a  sham.  We  account  for  this 
as  we  did  in  the  case  of  Marat.  He  is  regarded  as  a  SMALL. 
sincerity ;  and  the  sincerity  of  a  small  man  contracts,  to 
Carlyle's  eye,  something  of  the  ludicrous  air  in  which  a  Lilli- 
putian warrior,  shouldering  his  stfaw-sized  musket,  and  firing 
his  lead-drop  bullets,  seemed  to  Gulliver.  "  Bravo,  my  little 
hero  !"  shouts  the  historian,  with  a  loud  laugh,  as  he  sees  him, 
with  "  sky-blue  breeches,"  patronising  the  houseless  idea  of  a 
Divine  being,  "  prop  away  at  the  tottering  heavens,  with  that 
now  nine-pin  of  thine ;  but  why  is  there  not  rather  a  little 
nice  doll  of  an  image  in  those  showy  inexpressibles,  to  draw 
out,  and  complete  the  conversion  of  thy  people  ?  and  why  not 
say,  'These  be  thy  Gods,  0  toy  and  toad-worshipping  France?' " 
To  bring  him  to  respect,  while  he  admits,  the  sincerity,  we 
would  need  to  disprove  the  smallness,  of  our  Arras  advocate. 
Now,  compared  to  truly  great  men,  such  as  Cromwell — or  to 
extraordinary  men,  such  as  Napoleon,  Mirabeau,  and  Damon 
• — Robespierre  was  small  enough.  But  surely  it  was  no  pig- 
my whose  voice — calm,  dispassioned,  and  articulate — ruled 
lunatic  France;  who  preserved  an  icy  coldness  amid  a  land  of 


28  FILE    OF    FRENCH    REVOLUTIONISTS. 


lava ;  who  mastered,  though  it  was  only  for  a  moment,  a 
power  like  the  Revolution  ;  and  who  threw  from  his  pedestal, 
though  it  was  by  assailing  in  an  unguarded  hour,  a  statue  so 
colossal  as  Danton's.  Rigid,  Roman-like  purpose — keen,  if 
uninspired,  vision — the  thousand  eyes  of  an  Argus,  if  not  the 
head  of  a  Jove,  or  the  fist  of  a  Hercules — perseverance, 
honesty,  and  first-rate  business  qualities — we  must  allow  to 
Robespierre,  unless  we  account  for  his  influence  by  Satanic 
possession,  and  say — "  Either  no  dunce  ant  Diabolus." — 
Carlyle  attributes  his  defeat  and  downfall  to  his  pertinacious 
pursuit  of  a  shallow  logic  to  its  utmost  consequences.  Pro- 
bably he  thus  expresses,  in  his  own  way,  the  view  we  have  al- 
ready sought  to  indicate.  Robespierre  was  the  sincere,  con- 
sistent, unclean  apostle  of  an  unclean  system — a  system  of 
deism  in  theology — of  libertinism  in  morals — of  mobocracy  in 
politics — of  a  "gospel,"  according  to  Jean  Jacques, — a  gos- 
pel of  "  liberty,  equality,  fraternity" — a  liberty  ending  in 
general  bondage,  an  equality  terminating  in  the  despotism  of 
unprincipled  talent,  a  fraternity  dipping  its  ties  in  blood. 
With  faithful,  unfaltering  footstep,  through  good  report  and 
bad  report,  he  followed  the  genius  of  revolution  in  all  her  de- 
vious, dark,  dangerous,  or  triumphant  paths,  till  she  at  last 
turned  round  in  anger,  like  a  dogged  fiend,  and  rent  him  in 
pieces. 

In  dealing  with  Robespierre,  we  feel,  more  than  with  Marat, 
that  we  are  in  contact  with  an  intelligent  human  being,  not  an 
oddity,  and  mere  splinter  of  a  man.  His  idea  led,  and  at  last 
dragged  him,  but  did  not  devour  nor  possess  him.  His 
cruelty  was  more  a  policy,  and  less  a  raging  passion  ;  and  his 
great  moral  error  lay  in  permitting  a  theory,  opposed  to  his 
original  nature,  to  overbear  his  moral  sense,  to  drain  him  of 
humanity,  and  to  precipitate  him  to  his  doom.  If  he  had  re- 
sisted the  devil,  he  would  have  fled  from  him. 

In  rising  from  Robespierre  to  Danton,  we  feel  like  one  com- 
ing up  from  the  lower  plains  of  Sicily  into  its  western  coast — 
the  country  of  the  Cyclopses,  with  their  one  eye  and  gigantic 
stature ;  their  courage,  toil,  ferocity,  impiety,  and  power. — 
Danton  did  tower  Ujtanically  above  his  fellows,  and,  with  lit- 
tle of  the  divine,  was  the  strongest  of  the  earth-born.  He  had 
an  (<  Eye,"  like  a  shield  of  sight,  broad,  piercing,  and  looking 


MAYAT.  ROBESPIERRE.  AND  CANTON.  29 


straight  forward.  His  intellect  was  clear,  intuitive,  command- 
ing, incapable  of  the  theoretical,  and  abhorrent  of  the  vision- 
ary. He  was  practical  in  mind,  although  passionate  in  tem- 
perament, and  figurative  in  speech.  His  creed  was  atheism, 
not  apparently  wrought  out  by  personal  investigation,  or  even 
sought  for  as  an  opiate  to  conscience,  but  carelessly  accepted, 
as  the  one  he  found  fashionable  at  the  time.  His  conduct, 
too,  was  merely  the  common  licentiousness  of  his  country, 
taking  a  larger  shape  from  his  larger  constitution  and  stronger 
passions.  His  political  faith  was  less  definite  and  strict,  but 
more  progressive  and  practical,  and  more  accommodated  to 
circumstances  than  Robespierre's.  His  patriotism  was  as  sin- 
cere as  Robespierre's,  but  hung  about  him  in  more  easy  and 
voluminous  folds.  It  was  a  toga,  not  a  tunic.  A  sort  of  lazy 
greatness,  which  seemed,  at  a  distance,  criminal  indifference, 
characterised  him  when  in  repose.  His  cupidity  was  as  Cy- 
clopean as  his  capacity.  Nothing  less  than  a  large  bribe 
could  fill  such  a  hand.  No  common  goblet  could  satisfy  such 
a  maw.  Greedy  of  money,  for  money's  sake,  he  was  not.  He 
merely  wished  to  live,  and  all  Paris  knew  what  he  meant  by 
living.  And  with  all  the  royal  sops  to  Cerberus,  he  remained 
Cerberus  still.  Never  had  he  made  the  pretensions  of  a  Lord 
Russell,  or  Algernon  Sidney,  and  we  know  how  they  were  sub- 
sidised. His  "  poverty,  but  not  his  will,  consented."  Had  he 
lived  in  our  days,  a  public  subscription — a  "  Danton  testimo- 
nial, all  subscriptions  to  be  handed  in  to  the  office  of 

Camille  Desmoulins" — would  have  saved  this  vast  needy  pat- 
riot from  the  disgrace  of  taking  supplies  from  Louis,  and  then 
laughing  a  wild  laughter  at  his  provider,  as  he  hewed  on  at 
the  foundations  of  his  throne. 

In  fact,  careless  greatness,  without  principle,  was  the  key 
to  Danton's  merits  and  faults — his  power  and  weakness.  Well 
did  Madame  Roland  call  him  "  Sardanapalus."  When  he 
found  a  clover  field,  he  rolled  in  it.  When  he  had  nothing  to 
do,  he  did  nothing;  when  he  saw  the  necessity  of  doing  some- 
thing immediately,  he  could  condense  ages  of  action  into  a 
few  hours.  He  was  like  some  dire  tocsin,  never  rung  till  dan- 
ger was  imminent,  but  then  arousing  cities  and  nations  as  one 
man.  And  thus  it  was  that  he  saved  his  country  and  lost 
himself,  repulsed  Brunswick,  and  sunk  before  Robespierre. 


30  FILE    OF    FRENCH    REVOLUTIONISTS. 


It  had  been  otherwise,  if  his  impulses  had  been  under  the 
watchful  direction  of  high  religious,  or  moral,  or  even  political 
principle.  This  would  have  secured  unity  among  his  passions 
and  powers,  and  led  to  steady  and  cumulative  effort.  From 
this  conscious  greatness,  and  superiority  to  the  men  around 
him,  there  sprung  a  fatal  security  and  a  fatal  contempt.  He 
sat  on  the  Mountain,  smiling,  while  his  enemies  were  under- 
mining his  roots  5  and  while  he  said,  "  He  dares  not  imprison 
me,"  Robespierre  was  calmly  muttering.  "  I  will." 

It  seemed  as  if  even  revolution  were  not  a  sufficient  stimu- 
lus to,  or  a  sufficient  element  for,  Danton's  mighty  powers. 
It  was  only  when  war  had  reached  the  neighborhood  of  Paris, 
and  added  its  hoarse  voice  to  the  roar  of  panic  from  within, 
that  he  found  a  truly  Titanic  task  waiting  for  him.  And  he 
did  it  manfully.  His  words  became  "  half- bat  ties."  His  ac- 
tions corresponded  with,  and  exceeded,  his  words.  He  was  as 
calm,  too,  as  if  he  had  created  the  chaos  around  him.  That 
the  city  was  roused,  yet  concentrated — furious  as  Gehenna, 
but  firm  as  fate,  at  that  awful  crisis — was  all  Danton's  doing. 
Paris  seemed  at  the  time  but  a  projectile  in  his  massive  hand, 
ready  to  be  hurled  at  the  invading  foe.  His  alleged  cruelty 
was  the  result,  in  a  great  measure,  of  his  habitual  careless- 
ness. Too  indifferent  to  superintend  with  sufficient  watchfulness 
the  administration  of  justice,  it  grew  into  the  Reign  of  Terror. 
He  was,  nevertheless,  deeply  to  blame.  He  ought  to  have 
cried  out  to  the  mob,  "  The  way  to  the  prisoners  in  the  Ab- 
baye  lies  over  Danton's  dead  body  ;"  and  not  one  of  them  had 
passed  on.  He  repented,  afterwards,  of  his  conduct,  and  was, 
in  fact,  the  first  martyr  to  a  milder  regime.  Not  one  of  his 
personal  enemies  perished  in  that  massacre ;  hence  the  name 
"  butcher"  applied  to  him  is  not  correct.  He  did  not  dabble 
in  blood.  He  made  but  one  fierce  and  rapid  irruption  into 
the  neighborhood  of  the  "  Red  Sea"  and  returned  sick  and 
shuddering  therefrom. 

His  person  and  his  eloquence  were  in  keeping  with  his 
mind  and  character.  We  figure  him  always  after  the  pattern 
of  Bethlehem  Gabor,  as  Godwin  describes  him :  his  stature 
gigantic,  his  hair  a  dead  black,  a  face  in  which  sagacity  and 
fury  struggle  for  the  mastery — a  voice  of  thunder.  His  mere 
figure  might  have  saved  the  utterance  of  his  watchword — 


MARAT,  ROBESPIERRE,  AND  DANTON.  31 


''  We  must  put  our  enemies  in  fear."  His  face  was  itsdf  a 
"  Reign  of  Terror."  His  eloquence  was  not  of  the  intellec- 
tual, nor  of  the  rhetorical  cast.  It  was  not  labored  with  care, 
nor  moulded  by  art.  It  was  the  full,  gushing  utterance  of  a 
mind  seeing  the  real  merits  of  the  case  in  a  glare  of  vision, 
and  announcing  them  in  a  tone  of  absolute  assurance.  He  did 
not  indulge  in  long  arguments  or  elaborate  declamations.  His 
speeches  were  Cyclopean  cries,  at  the  sight  of  the  truth  break- 
ing, like  the  sun,  on  his  mind.  Each  speech  was  a  peroration. 
His  imagination  was  fertile,  rugged,  and  grand.  Terrible 
truth  was  sheathed  in  terrible  figure.  Each  thought  leaped 
into  light,  like  Minerva,  armed  with  bristling  imagery.  Dan- 
ton  was  a  true  poet,  and  some  of  his  sentences  are  the  strong- 
est and  most  characteristic  utterances  amid  all  the  wild  elo- 
quence the  Revolution  produced.  His  curses  are  of  the 
streets,  not  of  Paris,  but  of  Pandemonium;  his  blasphemies 
were  sublime  as  those  heard  in  the  trance  of  Sicilian  seer, 
belched  up  from  fallen  giants  through  the  smoke  of  Etna,  or 
like  those  which  made  the  "  burning  marl"  and  the  "  fiery 
gulf"  quake  and  recoil  in  fear. 

Such  an  extraordinary  being  was  Danton.  There  was  no 
beauty  about  him,  but  there  were  the  power  and  the  dreadful 
brilliance,  the  rapid  rise  and  rapid  subsidence,  of  an  Oriental 
tempest.  Peace — the  peace  of  one  of  the  monsters  of  the 
Egyptian  desert,  calm-sitting  and  colossal,  amid  long  desola- 
tions, and  kindred  forms  of  vast  and  coarse  sublimity — be  to 
his  ashes ! 

It  is  lamentable  to  contemplate  the  fate  of  such  a  man. 
Newly  married,  sobered  into  strength  and  wisdom,  in  the 
prime  of  life,  and  with  mildness  settling  down  upon  his  char- 
acter, like  moonlight  on  the  rugged  features. of  the  Sphinx, he 
was  snatched  away.  "  One  feels,"  says  Scott  of  him,  "  as  if 
the  eagle  had  been  brought  down  by  a  '  mousing  owl.' " 
More  melancholy  still  to  find  him  dying  "  game,"  as  it  is 
commonly  called — that  is,  without  hope  and  without  Grod  in 
the  world — caracoling  and  exulting,  as  he  plunged  into  the 
waters  of  what  he  deemed  the  bottomless  and  the  endless 
night ;  as  if  a  spirit  so  strong  as  his  could  die — as  if  a  spirit 
so  stained  as  his  could  escape  the  judgment — the  judgment 


32  A    FILE    OF    FRENCH    REVOLUTIONISTS. 


of  a  God  as  just  as  he  is  merciful ;  but  also — blessed  be  his 
name  ! — as  merciful  as  he  is  just. 


NO.  III.-VERGNIAUD. 

ELOQUENCE,  like  many  other  powers  .of  the  human  mind, 
lies  often  dormant  and  unsuspected,  till  it  is  elicited  by  cir- 
cumstances. The  quantity  of  silent  eloquence  awaiting  de- 
liverance in  a  nation,  is  only  to  be  calculated  by  those  who 
can  compute  the  amount  of  undeveloped  electricity  in  the 
earth  or  sky.  Genius  is  natus  haudfactus  ;  but  eloquence  is 
often  facta  hand  nata.  Rouse  ordinary  men  to  the  very 
highest  pitch,  and  they  never  even  approach  to  the  verge  of 
genius,  because  it  is  the  unsearchable  and  subtle  result  of  a 
combination  of  rare  faculties  with  rare  temperament ;  but  any 
man,  touched  to  the  quick,  may  become,  for  a  season,  as  elo- 
quent as  Demosthenes  himself.  The  child,  when  struck  to  a 
certain  measure  of  brutality,  utters  screams  and  words,  and 
assumes  attitudes,  of  high  eloquence,  and  every  sob  of  her 
little  heart  is  an  "  Oration  for  the  Crown."  How  eloquent 
the  pugilist,  when  his  blood  is  up,  and  the  full  fury  of  the 
fray  has  kindled  around,  and  made  his  very  fists  seem  inspired ! 
What  speeches  have  sometimes  come  from  the  gutter,  where  a 
drunk  Irishman  is  leaving  Curran  far  behind  in  the  grotesque 
combination  of  his  maddened  fancy  and  the  "  strange  oaths"  of 
his  infuriated  passions !  And  now  many  dull  men  has  the  ap- 
proach of  death  stirred  up  into  an  almost  superhuman  tide  of 
eloquence,  as  if  both  soul  and  tongue  were  conscious  that  their 
time  was  short.  Perhaps  the  most  eloquent  words  ever  spoken 
by  man  were  those  of  Jackson,  the  Irish  rebel,  who,  having 
swallowed  poison  ere  his  trial  commenced,  called  his  advocate 
to  his  side  when  the  pleading  was  over,  and  gasped  out,  as  he 
dropped  down  dead,  in  a  whisper  which  was  heard  like  thunder 
(using  the  language  of  Pierre,  in  "  Venice  Preserved"),  "  We 
have  deceived  the  Senate.'''1 

Upon  this  principle,  we  need  not  be  surprised  that  revolu- 


VERGNIAUD..  33 


tions,  while  developing  much  latent  genius,  have  inspired  far 
more  of  genuine  eloquence.  A  collection,  entitled  the  "  Ora- 
tory of  Revolutionists,"  would  contain  the  noblest  specimens 
of  human  eloquence.  What  the  speeches  of  Cicero,  compared 
to  those  of  Cataliue  or  Cethegus  !  What  poor  things,  inmere 
eloquence,  the  long  elaborate  orations  of  Pitt  and  Fox,  to  the 
electric  words,  the  spoken  signals,  the  sudden  lightning  strokes, 
to  even  the  mere  gestures,  of  Mirabeau  and  Danton !  And 
has  not  the  recent  Italian  revolution — quenched  though  it  has 
been — roused  one  orator  worthy  of  any  age  or  country,  Ga- 
vazzi — the  actual  of  Yendys'  ideal  and  magnificent  "  Monk," 
the  tongue  of  Italy,  just  as  Mazzini  is  its  far-stretching  and 
iron  hand  ? 

Such  remarks  may  fitly  introduce  us  to  Vergniaud,  the 
most  eloquent  of  the  "  eloquent  of  France,"  the  facile  princeps 
of  the  Girondins — that  hapless  party  who,  with  the  best  pro- 
fessions, and  the  most  brilliant  parts  (parts  not  powers — the 
distinction  is  important,  and  so  far  explains  their  defeat), 
committed  an  egregious  and  inexpiable  mistake  :  they  mistook 
their  age  and  their  work,  and,  as  they  did  not  discern  their 
time,  their  time  revenged  itself  by  trampling  on  them  as  it 
went  on  its  way. 

The  most  misplaced  of  this  misplaced  party  was  Vergniaud. 
But  no  more  than  his  party  was  he  fitted,  as  some  would  have 
it,  for  those  Roman  days  to  which  he  and  they  incessantly  re- 
verted their  gaze.  Sterner,  stronger  spirits  were  then  re- 
quired, as  well  as  in  the  times  of  the  French  Revolution. 
The  Girondins  were  but  imitative  and  emasculate  Romans  at 
the  best.  Vergniaud  would  have  been  in  his  element  in  the 
comparatively  peaceful  atmosphere  of  Britain.  There,  a 
Charles  Grant  on  a  larger  scale,  he  might  have  one-third  of 
the  day  "  sucked  sugar-candy,"  the  other  third  played  with 
children,  and  in  the  evening  either  sat  silent  or  poured  out 
triumphant  speeches,  as  he  pleased.  But,  in  France,  while 
he  was  playing  at  marbles,  others  were  playing  at  human 
heads.  His  speeches  were  very  brilliant ;  but  they  wanted 
the  point  which  Robespierre's  always  had — the  edge  of  the 
guillotine.  And  for  want  of  that  terrible  finish,  they  were 
listened  to,  admired,  but  not  obeyed. 

"  Slaves,"  says  Cowper,  "  cannot  breathe  in  England."  We 
*2 


34  A    FILE    OF    FRENCH    REVOLUTIONISTS. 


may  parody  his  words  thus,  "  WJiigs  cannot  brtathe  in 
France."  Britain  has  long  been  their  element ;  but  France 
demands  either  colder  or  hotter  spirits.  And  because  the 
French  Whigs,  the  Girondins,  were  lukewarm,  they  were 
vomited  out  of  its  volcano  mouth.  That  balancing  of  opin- 
ions, that  avoidance  of  all  extremes,  that  reverence  for  the 
past  modified  by  respect  for  the  present,  by  the  exercise  of 
which  party  differences  have  been  so  frequently  reconciled  in 
this  country,  seem  mere  trifling  or  impertinence  to  the  torrid 
revolutionary  hearts  in  France,  or  even  to  those  extreme 
royalist  natures  in  her,  of  whom  we  may  say  that  the  "  ground 
burns  frore,  and  frost  performs  the  effect  of  fire."  And  such 
a  French  Whig  was  Vergniaud  :  possessed  of  an  impetuous 
and  ardent  nature,  a  fiery  eloquence,  and  an  impulsive  intel- 
lect, all  running  in  the  narrow  channel  of  his  party.  In  Bri- 
tain he  would  have  been  counted  a  "  Whig,  and  something 
more."  In  France,  he  was  reckoned  a  "  Revolutionist,  and 
something  less;"  in  other  words,  a  weak  Revolutionist — the 
most  fatal  and  miserable  of  all  forms  of  weakness.  A  timid 
flash  of  lightning,  a  remorseful  wave  in  an  angry  ocean,  a 
drivelling  coward  among  a  gang  of  desperadoes,  a  lame  and 
limping  wolf  among  the  herd  descending  from  the  Apennines 
upon  the  snow-surrounded  village — such  are  but  figures  for  the 
idea  of  one  who  pauses,  halts,  stammers,  and  makes  play, 
amid  the  stern,  earnest,  and  rushing  realities  of  a  revolution. 

The  Girondins  were,  we  suspect,  as  a  party,  a  set  of  fantas- 
tic fribbles,  filled  with  a  small  fallacious  thought,  and  without 
the  unity  or  the  force  to  impose  even  a  shred  of  it  upon  the 
world.  In  the  fine  image  of  Grattan,  "  after  the  storm  and 
tempest  were  over,  they  were  the  children  of  the  village  come 
forth  to  paddle  in  the  streamlets."  Barbaroux  seems  a  bril- 
liant coxcomb.  Brissot  was  an  unarmed  and  incapable  ruffian, 
"  who,"  said  the  dying  Danton,  "  would  have  guillotined  me 
as  Robespierre  will  do."  Condorcet  was  a  clear-headed,  cold- 
hearted,  atheistic  schemer.  Roland  was  an  able  and  honest 
prig.  Louvet  was  a  compound  of  sentiment  and  smut.  The 
only  three  redeeming  characters  among  the  party  were  Ma- 
dame Rowland,  Charlotte  Corday,  and  Vergniaud ;  and  yet, 
sorry  saints,  in  the  British  sense,  any  of  these  make,  after  all 
being  nothing  else  than  an  elegant  intriguante,  with  a  brave 


VERGNIAUD.  35 


heart  and  a  fine  intellect  within  her,  a  beautiful  maniac,  and 
an  orator  among  a  thousand,  without  the  gift  of  common 
energy  or  common  sense. 

"  They  sought,"  says  Carlyle,  "  a  republic  of  the  virtues, 
and  they  found  only  one  of  the  strengths."  Danton  thought 
otherwise,  when  he  said,  "  they  are  all  Brothers-Cain."  His 
robust  nature  and  Cyclopean  eyesight  made  him  recoil  from 
the  gingerbread  imitation  of  the  Romans,  the  factitious  vir- 
tues, the  elegant  platitudes  of  language,  and  the  affected  re- 
finements of  the  saloons  of  the  Girondins.  He  smelt  blood, 
with  his  large  distended  nostril,  amid  all  their  apocryphal 
finery.  Had  they  succeeded,  they  might  have  gilded  the 
guillotine,  or  substituted  some  more  classical  apparatus  of 
death ;  but  no  other  cement  than  blood  could  they  or  would 
they  have  found  for  their  power  at  that  crisis.  At  this  they 
aimed;  but  while  the  Jacobines  fought  with  bare  rapiers,  tii3 
Girondins  fought  with  buttoned  foils ;  while  the  one  party 
threw  away  the  scabbard,  the  other  threw  away  the  sword. 

Vergniaud  lives  on  account  of  the  traditionary  fame  of  his 
eloquence ;  his  eloquence  itself  can  hardly  be  said  to  be  alive. 
The  extracts  which  remain  are,  on  the  whole,  diffuse  and  fee- 
ble. Even  his  famous  prophecy,  Ezekiel-like,  of  the  fall  of 
thrones,  is  tame  in  the  perusal.  What  a  contrast  between 
his  sonorous  and  linked  harangues,  and  the  single  volcanic 
embers  issuing  from  the  mouth  of  Mirabeau  or  Danton,  or 
even  the  nasal  "  I  pronounce  for  doom,"  which  constituted  the 
general  oratory  of  Robespierre  !  Vergniaud  neither  attained 
to  the  inspired  monosyllables  of  the  one,  nor  to  the  infernal 
croaldngs  of  the  other.  His  speeches  were,  indeed,  as  power- 
ful as  mellifluous.  It  was  a  cataract  of  honey  which  poured 
from  his  lips.  Their  effect  for  the  time  was  irresistible  :  like 
the  songs  in  Pandemonium,  they,  for  a  season,  "  suspended 
hell,  and  took  with  ravishment  the  thronging  audience;"  but 
it  was  only  for  a  season.  When  the  orator  ceased  to  be  seen 
and  heard,  his  words  ceased  to  be  felt.  Hence  he  was  only 
able  to  pronounce  the  funeral  oration  of  his  party,  not  to  givo 
it  any  living  or  permanent  place  in  the  history  of  his  country. 
He  had  the  tongue,  and  perhaps  the  brain,  but  he  wanted  the 
profound  heart  and  the  strong  hand  to  be  the  deliverer  of 
Franco. 


36  A    FILE    OF    FRENCH    REVOLUTIONISTS. 


He  broke  at  last,  as  breaks  a  wave  of  ocean — the  most 
beautiful  and  eloquent  of  the  deep,  starred  with  spray,  diffuse 
in  volume — upon  a  jagged  rock,  which  silently  receives,  repels, 
and  extinguishes  the  bright  invader.  The  echoes  of  his  elo- 
quence still  linger,  like  ghosts  amid  the  halls  of  history,  but 
his  name  has  long  since  faded  into  partial  insignificance,  and, 
in  comparison  with  his  manlier  and  stronger  foes,  has  not  even 
the  sound  which  that  of  Eschines  now  bears  beside  that  of 
Demosthenes,  He  fell,  and,  being  the  weaker,  he  could  not 
but  have  fallen  in  the  death-and-life  struggle. 

The  account  of  his  and  the  other  Girondists'  last  night  in 
prison  is  pronounced  by  Carlyle  <'  not  edifying."  And  yet, 
as  with  all  last  scenes,  noble  elements  are  mingled  with  it. — 
They  sing  "  tumultuous  songs;"  they  frame  strange  satiric  dia- 
logues between  the  devil  and  his  living  representatives  ;  they 
discourse  gravely  about  the  happiness  of  the  peoples ;  they 
talk,  too,  in  wild  and  whirling  words,  of  the  immortality  of 
the  soul,  and  the  scenes  so  near,  beyond  the  guillotine  and 
the  grave.  Vergniaud,  like  Hannibal,  had  secreted  poison, 
but,  as  it  is  not  enough  for  his  friends  as  well  as  himself, 
therefore,  "  to  the  dogs — he'll  none  of  it."  His  eloquence, 
too,  bursts  out,  like  an  expiring  flame,  into  glorious  bravuras. 
If  not  edifying,  surely  this  was  one  of  the  most  interesting  of 
scenes.  Who  can  or  dare  reproduce  it  to  us  in  words  ? 
Where  now  the  North  capable  of  this  "  Noctes  ?"  We  think 
Carlyle  himself  might,  twenty  years  ago,  have  given  it  us,  in 
a  rough  and  rapid  manner.  As  it  is,  "  for  ever  un described 
let  it  remain." 

It  was  intensely  French,  They  never  die  like  the  wolf  de- 
scribed by  Macaulay — 

"  Which  dies  in  silence  biting  hard, 
Among  the  dying  hounds." 

They  must  go  out  either  in  splendor  or  in  stench,  but  both 
must  be  palpable  and  ostentatious.  A  Vergniaud,  quiet,  se- 
rene, meditative,  lost  in  contemplation  of  the  realities  before 
him,  or  even  saying  quietly,  like  Thistlewoqd  to  Ings,  "  We 
shall  soon  know  the  great  secret,"  is  an  incongruous  concep- 
tion. He  must  speak  and  sing,  laugh  and  speculate,  upon  the 


VERGNIAUD.  37 


brink  of  the  abyss.  Might  not,  by  the  way,  a  panoramic 
view  of  national  deathbeds,  and  how  they  are  met  and  spread, 
tell  us  something  about  national  character,  and  about  things 
more  important  far  ? 

Having  been  compelled,  shortly  but  severely,  to  express  our 
notion  of  Vergniaud  and  his  abortive  party,  we  are  not,  at  the 
same  time,  disposed  to  part  with  either  in  anger.  They  did 
their  best ;  they  did  their  no  work  in  an  elegant  and  artistic 
manner ;  and  now,  like  the  Gracchi  of  ancient  Rome,  they 
are  honorable,  more  for  what  they  were  reputed  to  be,  than 
for  what  they  effected.  Let  the  hymn  of  the  "  Marseillaise," 
which  the  Girondists  sung  at  the  foot  of  the  scaffold,  in  ghast- 
ly gradation,  waxing  feebler  and  fainter,  till  it  died  away  in 
one  dying  throat,  be  their  everlasting  remembrancer  and 
requiem  ! 

u  Such  an  act  of  music  !  Conceive  it  well !  The  yet  living 
chant  there — the  chorus  so  rapidly  wearing  weak  !  Samson's 
axe  is  rapid  }  one  head  per  minute,  or  little  less.  The  chorus 
is  worn  out.  Farewell,  for  evermore,  ye  Girondius !  Te 
Deum  !  Fauchet  has  become  silent ;  Valaze's  dead  head  is 
lopped  ;  the  sickle  of  the  guillotine  has  reaped  the  Girondins 
all  away — the  eloquent,  the  young,  the  beautiful,  and  brave ! 
0  Death,  what  feast  is  toward  in  thy  ghastly  balls  ?" 

"  Such,"  says  Carlyle,  "was  the  end  of  Girondism.  They 
arose  to  regenerate  France,  these  men,  and  have  accomplished 
this.  Alas,  whatever  quarrel  we  had  with  them,  has  not  their 
cruel  fate  abolished  it  ?  Pity  only  survives.  So  many  ex- 
cellent souls  of  heroes  sent  down  to  Hades — they  themselves 
given  as  a  prey  to  dogs  and  all  manner  of  birds !  But  here, 
too,  the  will  of  the  Supreme  Power  was  accomplished.  As 
Vergniaud  said,  '  The  Kevolution,  like  Saturn,  is  devouring 
its  own  children.'  " 


38  A    FILE    OF    FRENCH    E  EVOLUTIONISTS. 


NO.  IV.— NAPOLEON. 

A  VERY  interesting  book  were  a  history  of  the  histories  of 
Napoleon — a  criticism  on  the  criticisms  written  about  him — 
a  sketch  of  his  sketchers  !  He,  who  at  one  period  of  his  life 
had  the  monarchs  and  ambassadors  of  Europe  waiting  in  his 
antechamber,  has  enjoyed  since  a  levee,  larger  still,  of  the  au- 
thors, orators,  and  poets  of  the  world.  Who  has  not  tried  his 
hand  at  painting  the  marvellous  manuikin  of  Corsica — for- 
tune's favorite  and  football — nature's  pride  and  shame — 
France's  glory  and  ruin — who  was  arrested  and  flung  back, 
when  he  was  just  vaulting  into  the  saddle  of  universal  domi- 
nion ?  What  eminent  author  has  not  written  either  on  the 
pros  and  cons  of  this  prodigy  of  modern  men  ?  To  name  only 
a  few  :  Horsley  has  tried  on  him  the  broad  and  heavy  edge  of 
his  invective — Hall  has  assailed  him  with  his  more  refined  and 
polished  indignation — Foster  has  held  up  his  iron  rugged  hands 
in  wonder  at  him — Byron  has  bent  before  him  his  proud  knee, 
and  become  the  laureate  of  his  exile — Hazlitt  has  fought  his 
cause  with  as  much  zeal  and  courage  as  if  he  had  belonged  to 
his  old  guard — Coleridge  has  woven  his  metaphysic  mazes 
about  and  about  him — Wordsworth  has  sung  of  him,  in  grave, 
solemn,  and  deprecatory  verse — Southey  has,  both  in  prose 
and  rhyme,  directed  against  him  his  dignified  resentment — 
Scott  has  pictured  him  in  Don  Roderick,  and  written  nine 
volumes  on  his  history — Brougham,  Jeffrey,  and  Lockhart, 
have  united  in  fascinated  admiration,  or  fine-spun  analysis  of 
his  genius — Charles  Philips  has  set  his  character  in  his  most 
brilliant  antithesis,  and  surrounded  his  picture  with  his  most 
sounding  commonplaces — Croly  has  dashed  off  his  life  with  his 
usual  energy  and  speed: — Wilson  has  let  out  his  admiration  in 
many  a  glorious  gush  of  eloquence — the  late  B.  Symmons  has 
written  on  him  some  strains  the  world  must  not  let  die  (his 
"  Napoleon  Sleeping"  is  in  the  highest  style  of  art,  and  on 
Napoleon,  or  aught  that  was  his,  he  could  not  choose  but 
write  nobly) — Channing,  in  the  name  of  the  freedom  of  the 
western  world,  has  impeached  him  before  high  Heaven — 
Emerson  has  anatomised  him,  with  keenest  lancet,  and  calmly 


NAPOLE.iN. '  39 


reported  the  result — Carlyle  has  proclaimed  him  the  "  Hero 
of  tools" — and,  to  single  out  two  from  a  crowd,  Thiers  and 
Alison  have  told  his  history  with  minute  and  careful  attention, 
as  well  as  with  glowing  ardor  of  admiration.  Time  would  fail 
us,  besides,  to  speak  of  the  memories,  favorable  or  libellous — 
of  the  dramas,  novels,  tales,  and  poems,  in  which  he  has  figured 
in  primary  or  in  partial  display.  Surely  the  man  who  has 
borne  such  discussion,  endured  such  abuse,  sustained  such 
panegyric,  and  who  remains  an  object  of  curiosity,  wonder,  and 
inquiry  still,  must  have  been  the  most  extraordinary  produc- 
tion of  modern  days.  He  must  have  united  profundity  and 
brilliance,  splendor  and  solidity,  qualities  creating  fear  and 
love,  and  been  such  a  compound  of  the  demigod  and  the  demon, 
the  wise  king  and  the  tyrant,  as  the  earth  never  saw  before, 
nor  is  ever  likely  to  behold  again. 

This,  indeed,  is  the  peculiarity  of  Napoleon.  He  was  pro- 
found, as  well  as  brilliantly  successful.  Unlike  most  con- 
querors, his  mind  was  big  with  a  great  thought,  which  was 
never  fully  developed.  He  was  not  raised,  as  many  have  stu- 
pidly thought,  upon  the  breath  of  popular  triumph.  It  was 
not  "  chance  that  made  him  king,"  or  that  crowned  him,  or 
that  won  his  battles.  He  was  a  cumulative  conqueror. — 
Every  victory,  every  peace,  every  law,  every  movement,  was 
the  step  of  a  giant  stair,  winding  upward  toward  universal 
dominion.  All  was  systematic.  All  was  full  of  purpose. 
All  was  growingly  progressive.  No  rest  was  possible.  He 
might  have  noonday  breathing-times,  but  there  was  no  nightly 
repose.  "  Onwards"  was  the  voice  ever  sounding  behind  him  : 
nor  was  this  the  voice  of  his  nation,  ever  insatiate  for  novelty 
and  conquest ;  nor  was  it  the  mere  "  Give,  give"  of  his  rest- 
less ambition  ;  it  was  the  voice  of  his  ideal,  the  cry  of  his  un- 
quenchable soul.  He  became  the  greatest  of  warriors  and 
conquerors,  or  at  least  one  of  the  greatest,  because,  like  a  true 
painter  or  poet,  he  came  down  upon  the  practice  of  his  art, 
from  a  stern  and  lofty  conception,  or  hypothesis,  to  which 
everything  required  to  yield.  As  Michael  Angelo  subjected 
all  things  to  his  pursuit  and  the  ideal  he  had  formed  of  it, 
painted  the  crucifixion  by  the  side  of  a  writhing  slave,  and, 
pious  though  he  was,  would  have  broken  up  the  true  cross  for 
pencils;  so  Napolean  pursued  his  ideal  through  tempests  of 


40  A    FILE    OF    FRENCH    REVOLUTIONISTS. 


death-liail  and  seas  of  blood,  and  looked  upon  poison,  and 
gunpowder,  and  men's  lives,  as  merely  the  box  of  colors  ne- 
cessary to  his  new  and  terrible  art  of  war  and  grand  scheme 
of  conquest. 

But  were  the  art  and  the  scheme,  thus  frightfully  followed 
out,  worthy  and  noble  ?  Viewed  in  a  Christian  light,  they 
hardly  were.  The  religion  of  Jesus  denounces  war,  in  all 
save  its  defensive  aspects.  But,  when  we  try  Napoleon  by 
human  standards,  and  compare  his  scheme  with  that  of  other 
conquerors,  both  seem  transcendently  superb.  He  saw  clear- 
ly that  there  was  no  alternative  between  the  surges  of  anarchy 
and  the  absolute  government  of  one  master-mind.  He  saw 
that  what  was  called  "  balance  of  power"  was  a  feeble  and  use- 
less dream,  and  that  all  things  in  Europe  were  tending  either 
to  anarchy  or  a  new  absolutism — either  to  the  dominion  of 
millions,  or  of  that  one  who  should  be  found  a  match  for  mil- 
lions. He  thought  himself  that  one.  His  iron  hand  could, 
in  the  first  place,  grasp  the  great  sceptre ;  and  his  wise  and 
powerful  mind  would  afterwards  consolidate  his  dominion  by 
just  and  liberal  laws.  "  On  this  hint  he  spake" — in  cannon. 
This  purpose  he  pursued  with  an  undeviating  energy,  which 
seemed,  for  a  season,  sure  and  irresistible  as  one  of  the  laws 
of  nature.  The  unity  of  his  tactique  only  reflected  the  unity 
of  his  plan.  It  was  just  the  giant  club  in  the  giant  hand. 
Of  his  system  of  strategy,  the  true  praise  is  simply  that  it 
gave  a  fit  and  full  expression  to  his  idea- — it  was  what  heroic 
rhyme  was  to  Dryden,  blank  verse  to  Milton,  and  the  Spen- 
serian stanza  to  Byron. 

To  his  scheme,  and  his  mode  of  pursuing  it,  there  occur, 
however,  certain  strong  objections  5  but  all,  or  nearly  all, 
founded  upon  principles  the  truth  of  which  he  did  not  recog- 
nize. First,  it  is  a  scheme  impossible.  No  one  human  arm 
or  mind  can  ever  govern  the  world.  There  is  but  One  person 
before  whom  every  knee  shall  bow,  and  whose  lordship  every 
tongue  shall  confess.  Napoleon  saw  that  there  is  no  help  for 
the  world,  but  in  the  absolute  dominance  of  a  single  mind  ; 
but  he  did  not  see  that  this  mind,  ere  it  can  keep  as  well  as 
gain  dominion,  and  ere  it  can  use  that  dominion  well,  must  be 
divine.  Who  can  govern  even  a  child  without  perpetual  mis- 


NAPOLEON.  4 1 


takes  ?  And  how  much  less  can  one  ungifted  with  divine 
knowledge  and  power  govern  a  world  ? 

But,  secondly,  Napoleon  mistook  the  means  for  gaining  his 
object.  He  thought  himself  invested  with  immunities  which 
he  did  not  possess.  The  being  who  can  repeal  the  laws  of 
justice  and  mercy — who  can  pursue  plans  of  ultimate  benevo- 
lence through  paths  of  profound  and  blood-sprinkled  darkness 
— who  can  command  the  Banaanites  to  be  extirpated,  and  per- 
mit the  people  of  Kabbah  to  be  put  under  axes  and  saws  of 
iron,  and  raise  up  base,  bad,  or  dubious  characters,  to  work 
out  his  holy  purposes,  must  be  a  being  superior  to  man — must 
be  God.  Whereas  the  man,  however  endowed,  who  violates 
all  conventional  as  well  as  moral  laws  in  seeking  his  object — 
who  can  "  break  open  letters,  tell  lies,  calumniate  private 
character,"  as  well  as  assassinate  and  poison,  must  be  pro- 
nounced a  being  in  many  respects  inferior  to  mankind,  a  hu- 
man Satan,  uniting  magnitude  of  object  and  of  power  to  detest- 
able meanness  and  maliciousness  of  character  and  of  instru- 
mentality. We  ought,  perhaps,  to  apologize  for  bringing  thus, 
even  into  momentary  contrast,  the  Governor  of  the  universe, 
and  his  mysterious,  but  most  righteous  ways,  and  the  reckless 
actions  of  the  Emperor  of  the  French. 

A  greater  mistake  still  was  committed  by  Napoleon,  when 
he  allied  himself  with  the  princes  of  Europe,  when  he  ceased 
to  be  the  soldier  and  the  Caesar  of  democracy,  and  when,  above 
all,  he  sought  to  found  a  house,  and  was  weak  enough  to  be- 
lieve that  he  could  ever  have  a  successor  from  his  own  loins 
equal  to  himself.  Cromwells  and  Napoleons  are  but  thinly 
sown,  and  "  not  transferable,"  might  be  written  on  their  brains. 
Here  we  see  another  proof  of  the  gross  miscalculation  he  made 
of  his  own,  and  indeed  of  human,  nature.  "  My  children  must 
be  as  great  as  myself,"  was  his  secret  thought :  otherwise,  u  I 
am  God,  and  gods  must  spring  from  me."  But  it  is  not  in 
human  nature  to  continue  a  hereditary  series  of  able  and  wise 
rulers,  far  less  a  procession  of  prodigies.  From  heaven  must 
come  down  the  one  immutable  Man,  who  is  without  beginning 
of  days  or  end  of  life,  whose  kingdom  is  an  everlasting  king- 
dom, and  the  days  of  whose  years  are  for  ever  and  ever. 

But,  thirdly  taking  Napoleon  on  his  own  godless  ground, 
in  seeking  his  great  object,  he  neglected  some  important  ele- 


42  A    FILE    OF    FRENCH    REVOLUTIONISTS. 


mcnts  of  success.  He  not  only  committed  grave  errors,  but 
he  omitted  some  wise  and  prudent  steps.  He  reinstated  the 
crosier  and  re-crowned  the  Pope,  instead  of  patronizing  a 
moderate  Protestantism.  He  was  more  anxious  to  attack 
aristocrats  than  the  spirit  of  oligarchy.  He  sought  rather  to 
crush  than  to  transfuse  the  Jacobin  element.  He  contrived 
elaborately  to  disguise  his  real  purpose,  to  dream  of  his  ima- 
gination, under  the  trappings  and  pretensions  of  vulgar  ambi- 
tion, and  thus  created  a  torrent  of  prejudice  against  himself. 
He  made  the  contest  against  Russia  assume  the  aspect  of  a 
strife  between  two  butchers  for  a  very  fair  heifer,  rather  than 
that  of  civilization  bearding,  since  it  could  not  interpene- 
trate, barbarism — of  the  hunter  seeking  the  bear  in  his  den. 
The  enthusiasm  he  kindled  was  chiefly  that  of  the  love  of  mar- 
tial glory,  or  of  attachment  to  his  flag  and  person,  not  of  the 
"idea"  which  possessed  his  own  breast.  Hence  the  ardor  of 
his  army,  being  of  the  "  earth,  earthy,"  yielded  quickly  to  the 
first  gush  of  genuine  patriotism  which  arose  to  oppose  them, 
and  which,  though  as  narrow  as  intense,  was,  in  comparison, 
fire  from  heaven.  Perhaps,  in  truth,  his  inspiring  idea  was 
not  easily  communicable  to  such  men  as  those  he  led,  who, 
shouting  "  Vive  la  France,"  or  "  Vive  1'Empereur,"  little 
imagined  that  he  was  paving,  on  their  carcasses,  his  path  to 
the  title  and  the  throne  of  an  "  Ornuiarch." 

The  theory  of  Napoleon,  thus  propounded,  seems  to  explain 
some  points  in  his  character  which  are  counted  obscure.  It 
accounts  for  his  restless  dissatisfaction  with  the  success  he  did 
gain.  What  were  Belgium,  Holland,  and  Italy  to  him,  who 
had  formed  not  the  mere  dream,  but  the  hope  and  design  of  a 
fifth  monarchy  ?  It  explains  his  marvellous  triumphs.  He 
fought  not  for  a  paltry  battle-field,  nor  for  the  possession  of 
an  island,  but  to  gain  a  planet,  to  float  his  standard  in  the 
breezes  of  the  whole  earth  !  Hence  an  enthusiasm,  a  secret 
spring  of  ardor,  a  determination  and  a  profundity  of  resource, 
which  could  hardly  be  resisted.  How  keen  the  eye,  and 
sharpened  almost  to  agony  the  intellect,  of  a  man  gambling 
for  a  world  !  It  explains  the  strange  gloom,  and  stranger 
gaiety,  the  oddness  of  manner,  the  symptoms  which  made 
ninny  think  him  mad.  The  man,  making  a  fool  of  the  world, 
became  often  himself  the  fool  of  a  company,  who  knew  not  be- 


NAPOLEON.  43 


sides  that  he  was  the  fool  of  an  idea.  The  thought  of  univer- 
sal dominion — the  feeling  that  he  was  made  for  it,  and  tend- 
ing to  it — this  made  him  sometimes  silent  when  he  should 
have  spoken,  and  sometimes  speak  when  he  should  have  been 
silent — this  was  a  wierd  wine  which  the  hand  of  his  Demon 
poured  out  to  him,  and  of  which  he  drank  without  measure 
and  in  secret.  It  explains  the  occasional  carelessness  of  his 
conduct — a  carelessness  like  that  of  the  sun,  who,  warming 
the  earth  and  glorifying  the  heavens,  yet  sometimes  scatters 
abroad  beams  which  burn  men's  brains,  and  anon  set  corn- 
fields on  fire.  It  explains  the  truth  and  tenderness,  the  love 
of  justice  and  the  gleams  of  compassion,  which  mingled  with 
his  public  and  private  conduct.  He  was  too  wise  to  under- 
rate, and  too  great  not  to  feel,  the  primary  laws  of  human  na- 
ture. And  he  intended  that,  when  his  power  was  consolidated, 
these  should  be  the  laws  of  his  empire.  His  progress  was  a 
voyage  through  blood,  toward  mildness,  peace,  and  justice. — 
But  in  that  ocean  of  blood  there  lay  an  island,  and  in  the  is- 
land did  that  perilous  voyage  terminate,  and  to  it  was  our 
daring  hero  chained,  till  his  soul  departed.  Against  one  is- 
land had  this  continental  genius  bent  all  the  fury  and  the 
energy  of  his  nature,  and  in  another  island  was  he  for  a  time 
imprisoned,  and  in  a  third  island  he  breathed  his  last. 

Our  theory,  in  fine,  accounts  for  the  calm  firmness  with 
which  he  met  his  reverses.  His  empire,  indeed,  had  fallen, 
but  his  idea  remained  intact.  He  might  never  express  it  in 
execution ;  but  he  had  thrown  it  down  on  the  arena  of  the 
world,  and  it  lies  still  in  that  "  court  of  the  Gentiles."  It  has 
started  anew  in  these  degenerate  days,  an  invigorating  thought, 
the  thought  of  a  single  ruler  for  this  distracted  earth ;  a 
thought  which,  like  leaven,  is  sure  to  work  on  till  it  leaven  all 
the  lump ;  and  is  to  be  fulfilled  in  a  way  of  which  many  men 
dream  not.  Napoleon,  though  he  failed  in  the  attempt,  felt, 
doubtless,  the  consolation  of  having  made  it,  and  of  having 
thereby  established  for  himself  an  impersonal  and  imperish- 
able glory.  The  reality  of  empire  departed  when  he  resigned ; 
but  the  bright  prophetic  dream  of  empire  only  left  him  when 
he  died,  and  has  become  his  legacy  to  the  world. 

Such,  we  think,  were  Napoleon's  purpose  and  its  partial 
fulfilment.  His  powers,  achievements,  and  private  character 


44  A    FILE    OF    FRENCH    REVOLUTIONISTS. 


remain.  His  powers  have  been,  on  the  one  hand,  unduly 
praised,  and,  on  the  other,  unduly  depreciated.  His  unex- 
ampled success  led  to  the  first  extreme,  and  his  unexampled 
downfall  to  the  latter.  While  some  have  talked  of  him  as 
greater  than  Caesar,  others  think  him  a  clever  impostor,  a  vul- 
gar conjurer,  with  one  trick,  which  was  at  last  discovered. 
Our  notion  lies  between.  He  must,  indeed,  stand  at  some 
distance  from  Caesar- — the  all-accomplished,  the  author,  the 
orator — whose  practical  wisdom  was  equal  to  his  genius — who 
wore  over  all  his  faculties,  and  around  his  very  errors  and 
crimes,  a  mantle  of  dignity — and  whose  one  immortal  bulletin, 
"  Veni,  vidi,  vici,"  stamps  an  image  of  the  energy  of  his  charac- 
ter, the  power  of  his  talents,  and  the  laconic  severity  of  his  taste 
— Nor  can  he  be  equalled  to  Hannibal,  in  rugged  daring  of  pur- 
pose, in  originality  of  conception,  in  personal  courage  or  in 
indomitable  perseverance — Hannibal,  who  sprang  like  a  bull- 
dog at  the  throat  of  the  Roman  power,  and  who  held  his  grasp 
till  it  was  loosened  in  death.  But  neither  does  he  sink  to  the 
level  of  the  Tamerlanes  or  Bajazets.  His  genius  soared  above 
the  sphere  of  such  skilful  marshals  and  martinets  as  Turenne 
and  Marlborough.  They  were  the  slaves  of  their  system  of 
strategy;  he  was  the  king  of  his.  They  fought  a  battle  as 
coolly  as  they  played  a  game  of  chess  ;  he  was  full  of  impulses 
and  sudden  thoughts,  which  became  the  seeds  of  victory,  and 
could  set  his  soldiers  on  fire,  even  when  he  remained  calm 
himself.  In  our  age,  the  name  of  Wellington  alone  can 
balance  with  his.  But,  admitting  the  Duke's  great  qualities, 
his  iron  firmness,  his  profound  knowledge  of  his  art,  and  the 
almost  superhuman  tide  of  success  which  followed  him,  he 
never  displayed  such  dazzling  genius,  and,  without  enthusiasm 
himself,  seldom  kindled  it  in  others.  He  was  a  clear  steady 
star;  Napoleon,  a  blood-red  meteor,  whose  very  downfall  is 
more  interesting  than  the  other  rising.  Passing  from  com- 
parisons, Napoleon  possessed  a  prodigal  assortment  of  facul- 
ties. He  had  an  intellect  clear,  rapid,  and  trenchant  as  a 
scimitar ;  an  imagination  fertile  in  resources,  if  incorrect  in 
taste  ;  a  swift  logic  ;  a  decisive  will ;  a  prompt  and  lively  elo- 
quence ;  and  passions,  in  general,  concentred  and  quiet  as  a 
charcoal  furnace.  Let  us  not  forget  his  wondrous  faculty  of 
silence.  He  could  talk,  but  he  seldom  babbled,  and  seldom 


NAPOLEON.  45 


used  a  word  too  much.  His  conversation  was  the  reflex  of 
his  military  tactics.  As  in  the  field  he  concentrated  his  forces 
on  a  certain  strong  point,  which  when  gained,  all  was  gained; 
so,  in  conversation,  he  sprung  into  the  centre  of  every  subject, 
and,  tearing  out  its  heart,  left  the  minor  members  to  shift  for 
themselves.  Profound  in  no  science,  save  that  of  war,  what 
he  knew,  he  knew  thoroughly,  and  could  immediately  turn  to 
account.  He  called  England  a  "  nation  of  shopkeepers  ;"  but 
he  was  as  practical  as  a  shopkeeper  himself — -the  emperor  of  a 
shopkeeping  age.  Theorisers  he  regarded  with  considerable 
contempt.  Theories  he  looked  at,  shook  roughly,  and  asked 
the  inexorable  question,  "  Will  they  stand  ?"  Glimpses  of 
truth  came  often  on  him  like  inspiration.  "  Who  made  all 
that,  gentlemen?"  was  his  question  at  the  atheistic  savans,  as 
they  sailed  beneath  the  starry  heavens,  and  denied  the  Maker. 
The  misty  brilliance,  too  often  disguising  little,  of  such  a 
writer  as  Madame  de  Stael  was  naught  in  his  eyes.  How,  had 
he  been  alive,  would  he  have  laughed  over  the  elegant  senti- 
mentalism  of  Lamartine,  and  with  a  strong  contemptuous 
breath  blown  away,  like  rolled  shavings,  his  finest  periods  ! — 
Yet  he  had  a  little  corner  of  literary  romance  in  his  heart. 
He  loved  Ossiau's  Poems.  For  this  his  taste  has  been  ques- 
tioned ;  but  to  literary  taste  Napoleon  did  not  pretend.  He 
could  only  criticise  the  arrangements  of  a  battle,  was  the  au- 
thor of  a  new  and  elegant  art  of  bloodshed,  and  liked  a  terri- 
bly terse  style  of  warfare.  But,  in  Ossian,  he  found  fire  amid 
fustian  ;  and  partly  for  the  fustain,  and  partly  for  the  fire,  he 
loved  him.  in  fact,  Ossian  is  just  a  Frenchified  version  of 
Homer  5  and  no  wonder  that  it  pleased  at  once  Napoleon's 
martial  spirit  and  his  national  taste.  The  ancient  bard  him- 
self had  been  too  simple.  M'Pherson  served  him  up  with 
flummery,  and  he  went  sweetly  down  the  throat  of  our  melo- 
dramatic Hero. 

Napoleon's  real  writings  were  his  battles.  Lodi  let  us  call 
a  wild  and  passionate  ode  ;  Austerlitz  an  epic ;  and  Waterloo 
a  tragedy.  Yet,  amid  the  bombast  and  falsetto  of  his  bulle- 
tins and  speeches,  there  occur  coals  of  genuine  fire,  and  gleams 
of  lofty  genius.  Every  one  remembers  the  sentence,  "  French- 
men, remember  that  from  the  top  of  these  pyramids  forty  cen- 
turies look  down  upon  your  actions ;"  a  sentence  enough  to 


46  A    FILE    OF    FRENCH    REVOLUTIONISTS. 


make  a  man  immortal.  In  keeping  with  the  genius  discover- 
ed in  this,  were  his  allusions  to  the  "  sun  of  Austerlitz," 
which,  as  if  to  the  command  of  another  Joshua,  seemed  to 
stand  still  at  his  bidding — his  belief  in  destiny,  and  the  other 
superstitions  which,  like  bats  in  a  mid-day  market-place,  flitted 
strangely  to  and  fro  through  the  clear  and  stern  atmosphere 
of  his  soul,  and  prophesied  in  silence  of  change,  ruin  and 
death. 

Like  all  men  of  his  order,  Napoleon  was  subject  to  moods 
and  fits,  and  presents  thus,  in  mind,  as  well  as  in  character,  a 
capricious  and  inconsistent  aspect.  Enjoying  the  keenest  and 
coldest  of  intellects,  and  the  most  iron  of  wills,  he  had  at 
times  the  fretfulness  of  a  child,  and  at  other  times,  the  fury  of 
a  demon.  He  was  strong,  but  surrounded  by  contemptible 
weaknesses.  Possessing  the  French  empire,  he  seemed  him- 
self at  times  "possessed" — now  of  a  miserable  imp,  and  now 
of  a  master-fiend.  Now  almost  a  demigod,  he  is  anon  an  idiot. 
No;v  organising  and  executing  with  equal  wisdom  and  energy 
complicated  and  stupendous  schemes,  he  fails  frequently  into 
blunders  which  a  child  might  have  avoided.  You  are  remind- 
ed of  a  person  of  majestic  stature  and  presence,  who  is  sud- 
denly seized  with  St.  Vitus's  Dance.  How  strange  the  in- 
consistencies and  follies  of  genius  !  But  not  a  Burns,  seeing 
two  moons  from  the  top  of  a  whisky-barrel — nor  a  Coleridge, 
dogged  by  an  unemployed  operative,  to  keep  him  out  of  a 
druggist's  shop — nor  a  Johnson,  standing  in  the  rain  to  do 
penance  for  disobedience  to  his  father — nor  a  Hall,  charging 
a  lady  to  instruct  her  children  in  the  belief  of  ghosts — iior  a 
Byron,  shaving  his  brow  to  make  it  seem  higher  than  it  was, 
or  contemplating  his  hands,  and  saying,  "  These  hands  are 
white" — is  a  more  striking  specimen  of  the  follies  of  the  wise, 
of  the  alloys  mingled  with  the  "  most  fine  gold,"  than  a  Na- 
poleon, now  playing  for  a  world,  and  now  cheating  one  of  his 
own  officers  at  whist. 

We  sometimes  envy  those  who  were  privileged  to  be  con- 
temporaries of  the  battles  of  Napoleon,  and  the  novels  of  Sir 
Walter  Scott,  while  each  splendid  series  was  yet  in  progress. 
The  first  Italian  campaign  might  have  made  the  blood  of 
Burke  (opposed  though  he  was)  dance  on  his  very  death-Led, 
for  there  he  was  lying  at  the  time.  And  how  grand,  for  a 


NAPOLEON.  47 


poetic  car,  to  have  heard  the  news  of  Jena,  and  Austerlitz, 
and  Wagram,  and  Borodino,  succeeding  each  other  like  the 
boom  of  distant  cannon,  like  the  successive  peals  of  a  thunder- 
storm !  Especially  when  that  dark  cloud  of  invasion  had 
gathered  around  our  own  shores,  and  was  expected  to  burst  in 
a  tempest  of  fire,  how  deep  must  have  been  the  suspense,  how 
silent  the  hush  of  the  expectation,  and  how  needless,  methinks, 
sermons,  however  eloquent,  or  poems,  however  spirit-stirring, 
to  concentrate,  or  increase,  or  express,  the  laud's  one  vast 
emotion  ! 

Looking  back,  even  now,  upon  the  achievements  of  Napo- 
leon, they  seem  still  calculated  to  awaken  wonder  and  fear — 
wonder  at  their  multitude,  their  variety,  their  dreamlike 
pomp  and  speed,  their  power  and  terrible  beauty,  and  that 
they  did  not  produce  a  still  deeper  impression  upon  the  world's 
mind,  and  a  still  stronger  reverberation  from  the  world's  poe- 
try and  eloquence  ;  and  fear,  at  the  power  sometimes  lent  to 
man,  at  its  abuse,  and  at  the  possibilities  of  the  future. — 
Another  Napoleon  may  rise,  abler,  wickeder,  wiser,  and  may 
throw  heavier  barricades  of  cannon  across  the  path  of  the 
nations,  crush  them  with  a  rougher  rod,  may  live  to  consolidate 
a  thicker  crust  of  despotism  over  the  world,  may  fight  another 
Austerlitz  without  a  Waterloo,  and  occupy  another  St.  Cloud 
without  another  St.  Helena ;  for  what  did  all  those  far-heard 
cannon  proclaim,  but  "  How  much  is  possible  to  him  that 
dareth  enough,  that  feareth  none,  that  getteth  a  giant's  power, 
and  useth  it  tyrannously  like  a  giant — that  can  by  individual 
might,  reckless  of  rights,  human  or  divine,  rise  and  ride  on 
the  topmost  billow  of  his  age  ?"* 

In  looking  more  closely  and  calmly  at  those  battles  of  Na- 
poleon, we  have  a  little,  though  not  very  much,  of  misty  exag- 
geration and  false  glory  to  brush  away.  Latterly,  they  lose 
greatly  that  air  of  romance  and  miracle  which  surrounded  the 
first  campaigns  of  Italy.  The  boy,  wha  had  been  a  prodigy, 
matures  into  the  full  grown  and  thoroughly  furnished  man. 
The  style,  which  had  been  somewhat  florid  but  very  fresh  and 
powerful,  becomes  calmer  and  rather  less  rapid.  Napoleon, 

*  This  paragraph,  written  early  in  1851,  has  since  received  two  em- 
phatic comments — need  we  name  Louis  Napoleon  and  Nicholas  1 


48  A    FILE    OF    FRE.VCli    REVOLUTIONISTS. 


who  had  fought  at  first  with  an  energy  that  seemed  desperation, 
•with  a  fire  that  seemed  superhuman,  against  great  odds  of 
experience  and  numbers,  fights  now  with  many  advantages  on 
his  side.  He  is  backed  by  vast,  trained,  and  veteran  armies. 
He  is  surrounded  by  generals  only  inferior  to  himself,  and 
whom  he  has  himself  reared.  And,  above  all,  he  is  preceded 
by  the  Gorgon-headed  Medusa  of  his  fame,  carrying  dismay 
into  the  opposing  ranks,  nerving  his  own  men  into  iron,  and 
stiffening  his  enemies  into  stone.  And,  although  longer  and 
sterner  ever  became  the  resistance,  the  result  of  victory  was 
equally  sure.  And  now  he  has  reached  a  climax ;  and  yet, 
not  satisfied  therewith,  he  resolves  on  a  project,  the  greatest 
and  most  daring  ever  taken  or  even  entertained  by  him.  It 
is  to  disturb  the  Russian  bear  in  his  forests.  For  this  pur- 
pose, he  has  collected  an  army,  reminding  you  of  those  of 
Jenghiz  Khan  or  Tamerlane,  unparalleled  in  numbers,  mag- 
nificent in  equipment,  unbounded  in  confidence  and  attachment 
to  their  chief,  led  by  officers  of  tried  valor  and  skill,  and 
wielded  and  propelled  by  the  genius  of  Napoleon,  like  one 
body  by  one  living  soul.  But  the  "  Lord  in  the  heavens  did 
laugh;"  the  Lord  held  him  and  his  force  "  in  derision."  For 
now  his  time  was  fully  come.  And  now  must  the  decree  of 
the  Watchers  and  the  Holy  Ones,  long  registered  against  him, 
begin  to  obtain  fulfillment.  And  how  did  God  fulfill  it  ?  He 
led  him  into  no  ambuscade.  He  overwhelmed  him  with  no 
superior  force.  He  raised  up  against  him  no  superior  genius. 
But  he  took  his  punishment  into  his  own  hand.  He  sent 
winter  before  its  time,  to  destroy  him  and  his  "  many  men  so 
beautiful."  He  loosened  snow,  like  a  flood  of  .waters,  and  frost, 
like  a  flood  of  fire,  upon  his  host;  and  Napoleon,  like  Satan, 
yielded  to  God  alone,  and  might  have  exclaimed,  with  that 
lost  archangel — 

"  Into  what  pit  thou  seest, 

From  what  height  fallen,  so  much  the  stronger  proved 
He  with  his  thunder,  and,  till  then,  who  knew 
The  force  of  those  dire  arms?" 

Thus  had  man  and  his  Maker  come  into  collision,  and  the 
potsherd  was  broken  in  the  unequal  strife.  All  that  followed 
resembled  only  the  convulsive  struggles  of  one  down,  taken, 
and  bound.  Even  when  cast  back  like  a  burning  ember,  from 


NAPOLEON:  49 


Elba  to  the  French  shores,  it  was  evidently  all  too  late.  His 
'  star"  had  first  paled  before  the  fires  of  Moscow,  and  at  last 
set  amid  the  snows  of  his  flight  from  it. 

Of  the  private  character  of  Napoleon,  there  are  many  con- 
tradictory opinions.  Indeed,  properly  speaking,  he  had  no 
private  character  at  all.  For  the  greater  part  of  his  life,  he 
was  as  public  as  the  sun.  He  ate  and  drank,  read  and  wrote, 
snuffed  and  slept  in  a  glare  of  publicity.  The  wrinkles,  dark- 
ening into  gloom,  on  that  massive  forehead,  did  indeed  conceal 
many  a  dark  and  secret  thought ;  but  his  mere  actions  and 
habitudes  were  all  public  property.  How  tell  what  he  was  in 
private,  since  in  private  he  never  was  ?  He  was  like  the  man 
who  had  "  lost  his  shadow.1'  No  sweet  relief,  no  dim  and 
tender  background  in  his  character.  Whatever  private  vir- 
tues he  might  have  possessed,  never  found  an  atmosphere  to 
develope  them  in ;  nay,  they  withered  and  died  in  the  sur- 
rounding sunshine.  He  had  no  time  to  be  a  good  son,  or 
husband,  or  father,  or  friend.  The  idea  which  devoured  him 
devoured  all  such  ties  too.  Still,  we  believe  that  he  never 
ceased  to  possess  a  heart,  and  that  much  of  his  apathy  and 
apparent  hardness  of  nature  was  the  effect  of  policy  or  of  ab- 
sence of  mind,  A  thousand  different  spectators  report  differ- 
ently of  his  manner  in  private.  To  some,  he  appeared  all 
grace  and  dignity — to  others,  a  cold,  absent  fiend,  lost  in 
schemes  of  far-off  villany — to  a  third  class,  an  awkward  and 
unmannered  blunderer — and  to  a  fourth,  the  very  demon  of 
curiosity,  a  machine  of  questions,  an  embodied  inquisition. — 
One  acute  spectator,  the  husband  of  Madame  Rahel,  reports  a 
perpetual  scowl  on  his  brow,  and  a  perpetual  smile  on  his  lips. 
We  care  very  little  for  such  representations,  which  rather  de- 
scribe the  man's  moods  than  the  man  himself.  We  heard  once, 
we  protest,  a  more  edifying  picture  of  him  from  the  lips  of  a 
Scotch  innkeeper,  who  declared  that  he  believed  "  Boney, 
when  he  was  at  leisure,  aye  sat,  wi'  his  airm  in  a  bowl  o'  wa- 
ter, resting  on  a  cannon-ball,  an'  nae  doubt  meditauting  mis- 
chief!"  It  were  difficult  to  catch  the  features  of  an  unde- 
veloped thought — and  what  else  was  Napoleon  ? 

As  concentration  was  the  power  of  his  mind,  so  it  was  the 
peculiarity  of  his  person.  His  body  was  a  little  vial  of  in- 
tense existence.  The  thrones  of  Europe  seemed  falling  before 


50  A    FILE    OF    FRENCH    REVOLUTIONISTS. 


a  nincpin  !  He  seemed  made  of  skin,  marrow,  bone  and  fire. 
Had  France  been  in  labor,  and  brought  forth  a  mouse?  But 
it  was  a  frame  formed  for  endurance.  It  took  no  punishment, 
it  felt  no  fatigue,  it  refreshed  itself  by  a  wink,  its  tiny  hand 
shivered  kingdoms  at  a  touch,  and  its  voice,  small  as  the 
"  treble  of  a  fay,"  was  powerful  and  irresistible  as  the  roar 
of  Mars,  the  homicidal  god.  Nature  is  often  strange  in  her 
economies  of  power.  She  often  packs  her  poisons  and  her 
glorious  essences  alike  into  small  bulk.  In  Napoleon,  as  in 
Alexander  the  Great  and  Alexander  Pope,  a  portion  of  both 
was  strangely  and  inextricably  mingled. 

We  might  deduce  many  lessons  from  this  rapid  sketch  of 
the  Emperor  of  the  French.  That  "moral  of  his  story,"  of 
which  Symmons  speaks,  would  require  seven  thunders  fully 
to  express  it.  We  will  not  dwell  on  the  common-places  about 
"vaulting  ambition,"  "  diseased  pride,"  "fallen  greatness," 
"  lesson  to  be  humble  and  thankful  in  our  own  spheres,"  and  so 
on.  Napoleon  was  a  brave,  great  man ;  in  part  mistaken, 
perhaps  also  in  part  insane,  and  also  in  a  large  part  guilty. 
But  he  did  a  work — not  his  full  work,  but  still  a  work  that 
he  only  could  have  accomplished.  He  continued  that  shaking 
of  the  sediments  of  the  nations,  which  the  French  Revolution 
began.  He  pointed  attention  with  his  bristling  guns  to  the 
danger  the  civilization  of  Europe  is  exposed  to  from  the 
Russian  silent  conspiracy  of  ages — cold,  vast,  quietly  pro- 
gressive, as  a  glacier  gathering  round  an  Alpine  valley.  He 
shook  the  throne  of  the  Austrian  domination,  and  left  that  of 
his  own  successors  tottering  to  receive  them.  He  drew  out, 
by  long  antagonism,  the  resources  of  Britain.  He  cast  a 
ghastly  smile  of  contempt,  which  lingers  still,  around  the  papal 
crown.  While  he  proved  the  disadvantages,  as  well  as  advan- 
tages, of  the  domination  of  a  single  human  mind,  he  uncon- 
sciously shadowed  forth  the  time  when  one  divine  hand  shall 
take  the  kingdom — his  empire,  during  its  palmy  days,  form- 
ing a  feeble  earthly  emblem  of  the  reign  of  the  Universal  King. 

A  new  Napoleon,  were  he  rising,  would  not  long  continue 
to  reign.  But  even  as  the  ancient  polypharmist  and  mistaken 
alchemist  was  the  parent  and  the  prophecy  of  those  modern 
chemists,  who  may  yet  advance  the  science  even  to  its  ideal 
limits,  so  in  this  age,  Napoleon  ras  been  the  unwitting  pioneer 


NAPOLEON.  51 


and  imperfect  prophet  of  a  Sovereign,  the  extent  and  the  du- 
ration of  whose  kingdom  shall  equal  and  surpass  his  wildest 
dreams.  Did  he,  by  sheer  native  genius,  nearly  snatch  from 
the  hands  of  all  kings  their  time-honored  sceptres — nearly 
confirm  his  sway  into  a  concentrated  and  iron  empire — and 
prove  the  advantages  of  centralization,  as  they  were  never 
proved  before  ?  And  why  should  not  "  another  king,  one 
Jesus,"  exerting  a  mightier  might,  obtain  a  more  lasting  em- 
pire, and  form  the  only  real  government  which,  save  the  short 
theocracy  of  the  Jews,  ever  existed  on  earth  ?  We  pause — • 
nay,  nature,  the  world,  the  church,  poor  afflicted  humanity, 
distracted  governments,  falling  thrones,  earth  and  heaven  to- 
gether, seem  to  pause  with  us,  to  hear  the  wherefore  to  this 
why. 


NO.    I.— EDWARD   IRVING. 

WE  Lave  often  asked,  and  have  often  too,  of  late,  the  ques- 
tion asked  us,  Why  have  we  no  life  of  Edward  Irving  ?  Why 
no  full  or  authentic  record  of  that  short,  eccentric,  but  most 
brilliant  and  instructive  career  ?  What  has  become  of  his 
papers,  which,  we  believe,  were  numerous — of  his  sermons, 
private  letters,  and  journal  ?  (if  such  a  thing  as  a  journal  he 
ever  kept — think  of  the  journal  of  a  comet !)  Why  have  none 
of  his  surviving  friends  been  invited  to  overlook  these,  and 
construct  from  them  a  life-like  image  of  the  man  ?  Or,  fail- 
ing them,  why  has  not  some  literary  man  of  eminence — even 
although  not  imbued  with  all  Irving's  peculiar  opinions,  yet, 
if  possessing  a  general  and  genial  sympathy  with  him — been 
employed  on  the  task  ?  We  know  that  many  think  this  arises 
from  the  impression  that  Irving  died  under  a  cloud,  being  felt 
by  his  admirers  to  be  general.  But  does  not  the  silence  of 
his  relatives  and  friends  serve  to  deepen  this  impression  ?  We 
have  heard  it  hinted,  on  the  other  hand,  that  the  real  reason 
is  connected  with  the  peculiar  views  of  Irving,  some  imagining 
that  no  man  can  write  his  life  well,  if  not  what  is  called  an 
Ervingite,  and  that  no  Irvingite  has  the  literary  qualifications. 
These  statements,  however,  we  do  not  believe.  Some  of  the 
Irvingites  are  men  of  very  considerable  talent,  and  why — al- 
though most  of  his  very  eminent  literary  friends  be  either  dead 
or  have  departed  farther^and  farther  from  his  point  of  view — 
although  Chalmers  be  gone,  De  Quincey  otherwise  occupied, 
Thomas  Carlyle  become  a  proclaimed  Pantheist,  and  Thomas 


EDWAIID    IRVING.  53 


Erskine,  of  Linlathen,  ceased  to  lay  much  if  any  stress  on  the 
Personal  Reign,  and  forsaken  other  Irvingite  peculiarities — 
does  not  some  one  of  his  own  party  attempt  a  biography  of 
this  eagle-winged  man  ?  Meanwhile,  we  propose  to  give  what 
we  know  to  be  an  honest  and  believe  to  be  a  true  outline  of 
his  character  and  peculiar  genius. 

We  have  had  not  a  few  disappointments  in  our  career,  but 
none  in  one  small  department — that  of  sight-seeing  and  hero- 
hearing — equal  to  that  which  befell  us  in  Edinburgh,  in  the 
year  1834.  We  were  told  that  Edward  Irving  was  to  hold 
forth  in  Mr.  Tait's  chapel,  Canongate,  on  the  forenoon  of  a 
February  Sabbath-day.  We  went  accordingly,  and  with  some 
difficulty  procured  standing  room  in  the  gallery  of  a  small 
chapel  in  an  obscure  and  very  dirty  close.  It  was  not  he  ! 
The  lofty,  once  black,  but  now  blanched  head  did  not  appear 
over  the  throng,  like  the  white  plume  of  a  chieftain  over  the 
surge  of  battle.  Another  came — (good  Mr.  Tait,  who  had 
left  the  sweet  moorland  solitudes  of  Tealing,  and  resigned  his 
living  to  follow  Irving) — and  we  never  had  another  opportu- 
nity of  seeing  and  hearing  the  giant  of  pulpit  oratory.  In  the 
close  of  that  year  he  died  in  Glasgow,  a  weary,  worn,  grey- 
headed, and  broken-hearted  man  of  forty-two. 

What  a  life  his  had  been  !  Short,  if  years  are  the  only 
measurement  of  time ;  but  long,  if  time  be  computed  by  the 
motion  of  the  higher  stars  of  thoughts,  feelings,  and  sorrows ! 
His  life,  too,  was  a  strangely  blended  one.  It  was  made  up 
of  violent  contrasts,  contradictions,  and  vicissitudes.  At  col- 
lege his  career  was  triumphant ;  he  carried  all  easily  before 
him.  Then,  after  he  obtained  license,  came  two  great  reverses 
— unpopularity  as  a  preacher,  and,  if  general  report  be  credited, 
a  love-disappointment.  He  was  discouraged  by  these  to  the 
extent  of  preparing  to  leave  his  native  land,  and  undertake 
the  duties  of  a  missionary  to  the  heathen.  In  this  case  he 
would  probably  have  perished  early,  and  his  fame  had  been 
confined  to  the  corner  of  an  obituary  in  a  missionary  magazine. 
Then  in  a  moment — whether  fortunate  or  unfortunate,  how 
shall  we  decide  ? — Chalmers  heard  him  preach,  and  got  him 
appointed  as  his  colleague  in  Glasgow.  Then  London  rose  up 
to  welcome  him,  as  one  man,  and  his  pulpit  became  a  throne 
of  power,  reminding  you  of  what  Knox's  was  in  Edinburgh  in 


54  A    CONSTELLATION    OF    SACKED    AUTHORS. 


the  sixteenth  century.  Not  since  that  lion-hearted  man  of 
God  had  thundered  to  nobles  and  maids  of  honor,  to  senators 
and  queens,  had  any  preacher  in  Britain  such  an  audience  to 
command  and  such  power  to  command  it  as  Irving.  There 
were  princes  of  the  blood,  ladies  high  in  honor  and  place, 
ministers  of  state,  celebrated  senators,  orators,  and  philoso- 
phers, poets,  critics,  and  distinguished  members  of  the  bar  and 
of  the  church,  all  jostled  together  into  one  motley  yet  magnifi- 
cent mass,  less  to  listen  and  criticise,  than  to  prostrate  them- 
selves before  the  one  heroic  and  victorious  man  ;  for  it  seemed 
rather  a  hero  of  chivalry  than  a  divine  who  came  forward  Sab- 
bath after  Sabbath  to  uplift  the  buckler  of  faith,  and  to  wield 
the  sword  of  the  Spirit.  The  speaker  was  made  for  the  audi- 
ence, the  man  for  the  hour.  In  Glasgow  he  was  an  eagle  in  a 
cage ;  men  saw  strength,  but  strength  imprisoned  and  embar- 
rassed. In  London,  he  found  a  free  atmosphere,  and  eyes 
worthy  of  beholding  his  highest  flight,  and  he  did — "  ye  stars  ! 
how  he  did  soar."  It  was  a  flight  prompted  by  enthusiasm, 
sustained  by  sympathy,  accelerated  by  ambition,  and  conse- 
crated by  Christian  earnestness.  There  might  be  indeed  a 
slight  or  even  a  strong  tinge  of  vanity  mingled  with  his  appear- 
ances, but  it  was  not  the  vanity  of  a  fribble,  it  was  rather  that 
of  a  child.  It  was  but  skin  deep,  and  did  not  affect  the  sim- 
plicity, enthusiasm,  and  love  of  truth  which  were  the  bases  of 
his  character  and  of  his  eloquence.  His  auditors  felt  that  this 
was  no  mouthing,  ranting,  strutting  actor,  but  a  great  good 
man,  speaking  from  a  full  intellect  and  a  warm  heart ;  and 
that  if  he  had,  and  knew  that  he  had,  a  strange  and  striking 
personal  presence,  and  a  fine  deep  voice  thoroughly  under  his 
management,  and  which  he  wielded  with  all  the  skill  of  an  art- 
ist, that  was  not  his  fault.  These  natural  and  acquired  advan- 
tages he  could  not  resign,  he  could  not  but  be  aware  of,  he 
must  use,  and  he  did  consecrate.  What  less  and  what  more 
could  he  have  done  ? 

We  have  heard  him  so  often  described  by  eyewitnesses,  not 
to  speak  of  the  written  pictures  of  the  period,  that  we  may 
venture  on  a  sketch  of  a  Sabbath,  during  his  palmy  days,  in 
the  Caledonian  Chapel.  You  go  a  full  hour  before  eleven,  and 
find  that  you  are  not  too  early.  Having  forced  your  way 
with  difficulty  into  the  interior,  you  find  yourself  in  a  nest 


EDWARD    IRVING.  55 


of  celebrities.  The  chapel  is  small,  but  almost  every  person 
of  note  or  notoriety  in  London  has  squeezed  Lmi  or  herself 
into  one  part  or  another  of  it.  There  shine  the  fine  open 
glossy  brow  and  speaking  face  of  Canning.  There  you  see  the 
small  shrimp-like  form  of  Wilberforce,  the  dusky  visage  of 
Denman,  the  high  Roman  nose  of  Peel,  and  the  stern  forehead 
of  Plunket.  There  Brougham  sits  coiled  up  in  his  critical 
might,  his  nose  twitching,  his  chin  resting  on  his  hand,  his  eyes 
retired  under  the  dark  lids,  his  whole  bearing  denoting  eager 
but  somewhat  curious  and  sinister  expectation.  Yonder  you 
see  an  old  venerable  man  with  mild  placid  face  and  long  grey 
hair  ;  it  is  Jeremy  Bentham,  coming  to  hear  his  own  system 
abused  as  with  the  tongue  of  thunder.  Near  him,  note  that 
thin  spiritual-looking  little  old  individual,  with  quiet  philo- 
sophic countenance  and  large  brow  :  it  is  William  Godwin,  the 
author  of  "  Caleb  Williams."  In  a  seat  behind  him  sits  a  yet 
more  meagre  skeleton  of  man,  with  a  pale  face,  eager  eyes, 
dark  close-cropped  hair  and  tremulous  nervous  aspect ;  it  is 
the  first  of  living  critics,  William  Hazlitt,  who  had  "forgot 
what  the  inside  of  a  church  was  like,"  but  who  has  been  fairly 
dragged  out  of  his  den  by  the  attraction  of  Irving's  eloquence. 
At  the  door,  and  standing,  you  see  a  young,  short,  stout  per- 
son, carrying  his  head  high,  with  round  face,  large  eyes,  and 
careless  school-boy  bearing :  it  is  Macauley,  on  furlough  from 
Cambridge,  where  he  is  as  yet  a  student,  but  hopes  soon  to  be 
equal  with  the  proudest  in  all  that  crowded  Caledonian  Chapel. 
And  in  a  corner  of  the  church,  Coleridge — the  mighty  wizard, 
with  more  knowledge  and  more  genius  under  that  one  white 
head  than  is  to  be  found  in  the  whole  of  the  bright  assem- 
bly— -looks  with  dim  nebulous  eyes  upon  the  scene.,  which 
seems  to  him  rather  a  swimming  vision  than  a  solid  reality. 
And  then,  besides,  there  are  belted  earls,  and  feathered  duch- 
esses, and  bishops  not  a  few,  and  one  or  two  of  the  Guelphic 
race  included  in  a  throng  which  has  not  been  equalled  for 
brilliance  in  London  since  Burke,  Fox,  and  Sheridan  stood  up 
in  Westminster  Hall,  as  the  three  accusing  spirits  of  Warren 
Hastings. 

For  nearly  half  an  hour  the  audience  has  been  fully  assem- 
bled, and  has  maintained,  on  the  whole,  a  decent  gravity  and 
composure.  Eleven  o'clock  strikes,  and  an  official  appears, 


56  A    CONSTELLATION    OF    SACRED    AUTHORS. 


bearing  the  Bible  in  his  hands,  and  thus  announcing  the  ap- 
proach of  the  preacher.  Ludicrous  as  might  in  other  circum- 
stances seem  the  disparity  between  the  forerunner  and  the 
coming  Man,  his  appearance  is  welcomed  by  the  rustle  and 
commotion  which  pass  through  the  assembly,  as  if  by  a  unani- 
mous cheer — a  rustle  which  is  instantly  succeeded  by  deep 
silence,  as,  slowly  and  majestically,  Edward  Irving  advances, 
mounts — not  with  the  quick  hasty  step  of  Chalmers,  but  with 
a  measured  and  dignified  pace,  as  if  to  some  solemn  music 
heard  by  his  ear  alone — the  stairs  of  the  pulpit,  and  lifting 
the  Psalm-book,  calmly  confronts  that  splendid  multitude. 
The  expression  of  his  bearing  while  he  does  this  is  very  pecu- 
liar ;  it  is  not  that  of  fear,  not  that  of  deference,  still  less  is 
it  that  of  impertinence,  anger  or  contempt.  It  is  simply  the 
look  of  a  man  who  says  internally,  "  I  am  equal  to  this  occa- 
sion and  to  this  assembly,  in  the  dignity  and  power  of  my  own 
intellect  and  nature,  and  MORE  than  equal  to  it,  in  the  might 
of  my  Master,  and  in  the  grandeur  and  truth  of  my  message." 
Ere  he  proceeds  to  open  the  Psalm-book,  mark  his  stature  and 
his  face  !  He  is  a  son  of  Anak  in  height,  and  his  symmetry 
and  apparent  strength  are  worthy  of  his  stature.  His  com- 
plexion is  iron  grey,  his  hair  is  parted  at  the  foretop,  and 
hangs  in  sable  masses  down  his  temples,  his  eye  has  a  squint, 
which  rather  adds  to  than  detracts  from  the  general  effect,  and 
his  whole  aspect  is  spiritual,  earnest,  Titanic  ;  yea,  that  of  a  Ti- 
tan among  Titans — a  Boanerges  among  the  sons  of  thunder. 
He  gives  out  the  psalm — perhaps  it  is  his  favorite  psalm,  the 
twenty-ninth — and  as  he  reads  it,  his  voice  seems  the  echo  of 
the  "  Lord's  voice  upon  the  waters,"  so  deep  and  far-rolling 
are  the  crashes  of  its  sound.  It  sinks,  too,  ever  and  anon  into 
soft  and  solemn  cadences,  so  that  you  hear  in  it  alike  the  moan 
and  the  roar,  and  feel  both  the  pathos  and  the  majesty  of  the 
thunderstorm.  Then  he  reads  a  portion  of  Scripture,  select- 
ing probably,  from  a  fine  instinctive  sense  of  contrast,  the 
twenty-third  psalm,  or  some  other  of  the  sweeter  of  the 
Hebrew  hymns,  to  give  relief  to  the  grandeurs  that  have 
passed  or  that  are  at  hand.  Then  he  says,  "  Let  us  pray," 
not  as  a  mere  formal  preliminary,  but  because  he  really  wishes 
to  gather  up  all  the  devotional  feeling  of  his  hearers  along 
with  his  own,  and  to  present  it  as  a  whole  burnt-offering  to 


EDWARD    IHVING.  57 


Heaven.  Then  his  voice,  "  like  a  steam  of  rich  distilled  per- 
fumes," rises  to  God,  and  you  feel  as  if  God  had  blotted  out 
the  Church  around,  and  the  Universe  above,  that  that  voice 
might  obtain  immediate  entrance  to  his  ear.  You  at  least  are 
conscious  of  nothing  for  a  time  save  the  voice  and  the  Auditor. 
"  Reverence  and  lowly  prostration  are  most  striking,"  it  has 
been  said,  "  when  paid  by  a  lofty  intellect,  and  you  are 
reminded  of  the  trees  of  the  forest  clapping  their  hands  unto 
Grod."  The  prayer  over,  he  announces  his  text,  and  enters  on 
his  theme.  The  sermon  is  upon  the  days  of  the  Puritans  and 
the  Covenanters,  and  his  blood  boils  as  he  describes  the  ear- 
nest spirit  of  their  times.  He  fights  over  again  the  battles  of 
Drumclog  and  Botlnvell;  he  paints  the  dark  muirlands, 
whither  the  Woman  of  the  Church  retired  for  a  season  to  be 
nourished  with  blood,  and  you  seem  to  be  listening  to  that  wild 
eloquence  which  pealed  through  the  wilderness  and  shook  the 
throne  of  Charles  II.  Then  he  turns  to  the  contrast  between 
that  earnest  period  and  what  he  thinks  our  light,  empty,  and 
profane  era,  and  opens  with  fearless  hand  the  vials  of  apocalyp- 
tic vengeance  against  it.  He  denounces  our  "  political  expe- 
diences," and  Canning  smiles  across  to  Peel.  lie  speaks  of 
our  "  godless  systems  of  ethics  and  economics,"  and  Bentham 
and  Godwin  shrug  their  shoulders  in  unison.  He  attacks. the 
poetry  and  the  criticism  of  the  age,  inserting  a  fierce  diatribe 
against  the  patrician  Byron  in  the  heart  of  an  apology  for  the 
hapless  ploughman  Burns ;  knocking  Southey  down  into  the 
same  kennel  into  which  he  had  plunged  Byron  ;  and  striking 
next  at  the  very  heart  of  Cobbett ;  and  Hazlitt  bends  his  brow 
into  a  frown,  and  you  see  a  sarcasm  (to  be  inserted  in  the  next 
"  Liberal")  crossing  the  dusky  disc  of  his  face.  Nay,  waxing 
bolder,  and  eyeing  the  peers  and  the  peeresses,  the  orator  de- 
nounces the  "  wickedness  in  high  places"  which  abounds,  and 
his  voice  swells  into  its  deepest  thunder,  and  his  eye  assumes 
its  most  portentous  glare,  as  he  characterises  the  falsehood  of 
courtiers,  the  hypocrisy  of  statesmen,  the  hollowness,  licen- 
tiousness, and  levity  of  fashionable  life,  singling  out  an  indi- 
vidual notoriety  of  the  species,  who  happens  to  be  in  more  im- 
mediate sight,  and  concentrating  the  "  terrors  of  his  beak,  the 
lightnings  of  his  eye,"  upon  her  till  she  blushes  through  her 
rouge,  and  every  feather  in  her  head-dress  palpitates  in  reply 


58  A    CONSTELLATION    OF    SACRED    AUTUOUS. 


to  her  rotten  and  quaking  heart.  It  is  Isaiah  or  Ezekiel  over 
again,  uttering  their  stern  yet  musical  a»d  poetic  burdens. 
The  language  is  worthy  of  the  message  it  conveys,  not  polished, 
indeed,  or  smooth,  rather  rough  and  diffuse  withal,  but  vehe- 
ment, figurative,  and  bedropt  with  terrible  or  tender  extracts 
from  the  Bible.  The  manner  is  as  graceful  as  may  well  co- 
exist with  deep  impetuous  force,  and  as  solemn  as  may  evade 
the  charge  of  cant.  The  voice  seems  meant  for  an  "  orator 
of  the  human  race,"  and  fitted  to  fill  vaster  buildings  than 
earth  contains,  and  to  plead  in  mightier  causes  and  controver- 
sies than  can  even  be  conceived  of  in  our  degenerate  days. 
It  is  the  "  many-folded  shell"  of  Prometheus,  including  in  its 
compass  "  soft  and  soul-like  sounds,"  as  well  as  loud  and  vic- 
torious peals.  The  audience  feel  in  contact,  not  with  a  mere 
orator,  but  with  a  Demoniac  force. 

That  this  sketch  is  not  exaggerated,  we  have  abundant  tes- 
timony. Canning  repeatedly  declared  that  Edward  Irving 
was  the  most  powerful  orator,  in  or  out  of  the  pulpit,  he  ever 
heard.  Hazlitt  has  written  panegyric  after  panegyric  upon 
him,  annexing,  indeed,  not  a  few  critical  cavils  and  sarcasms, 
as  drawbacks  from  his  estimate.  De  Quincey  called  him  once 
to  us  a  "  very  demon  of  power,"  and  uniformly  in  his  writings 
speaks  with  wonder,  not  unmingled  with  terror,  of  the  fierce, 
untamed,  resistless  energy  which  ran  in  the  blood  and  spoke 
in  the  talk  and  public  oratory  of  Edward  Irving. 

Yet  there  can  bs  little  doubt  that  these  splendid  exhibitions, 
while  exciting  general  admiration  in  London,  were  not  pro- 
ductive of  commensurate  good.  They  rather  dazzled  and 
stupified,  than  convinced  or  converted.  They  sent  men  away 
wondering  at  the  power  of  the  orator,  not  mourning  over  their 
own  evils,  and  striving  after  amendment.  They  served,  to 
say  the  most,  only  as  a  preface,  paving  the  way  for  a  volume 
of  instruction  and  edification,  which  was  never  published  ;  as 
an  introduction,  to  secure  the  attention  and  gain  the  ear  of  the 
public,  for  a  sermon,  and  an  application  thereof  of  practical 
power,  which  was  never  preached. 

Irving,  indeed,  left  himself  no  choice.  He  had  so  fiercely  and 
unsparingly  assaulted  the  modes  of  thought  and  styles  of 
preaching  which  prevailed  in  the  Church,  that  he  was  com- 
pelled, in  consistency  and  self-defence,  to  aim  at  a  novel  and 


EDWARD    IRVING.  59 


original  plan  of  promulgating  the  old  doctrines.  By  and  by. 
intercourse  with  Coleridge,  added  to  his  own  restless  spirit  of 
speculation,  began  to  shake  his  confidence  in  many  parts  of  our 
ancient  creeds.  A  new  system,  of  colossal  proportions,  founded, 
indeed,  on  the  basis  of  Scripture,  but  ascending  till  its  sum- 
mits were  lost  in  mist,  began  to  rise  under  his  Babylonian 
hand.  He  saw,  too,  for  the  first  time,  the  mountain-ranges  of 
prophecy  lowering  before  him,  dark  and  cloud-girt  for  the 
most  part,  but  with  strange  gleams  shining  here  and  there 
upon  their  tops,  and  with  pale  and  shadowy  hands  beckoning 
him  onwards  into  their  midst.  These  were  to  him  the  Delecta- 
ble Mountains,  and  to  gain  the  summit  of  Mount  Clear 
became  henceforth  the  object  of  his  burning  and  lifelong  ambi- 
tion. He  toiled  up  these  hills  for  many  a  weary  hour  and 
with  many  a  heavy  groan,  but  his  strong  faith  and  sanguino 
genius  supported  him;  in  the  evening  of  each  laborious  day 
he  fancied  he  saw,  on  the  unreached  pinnacle, 

"  Hope  enchanted  smile,  and  wave  her  golden  hair;" 

and  each  new  morning  found  him  as  alert  as  ever,  climbing  the 
mountains  towards  the  city.  Again  and  again,  he  imagined 
that  he  had  reached  tho  far-seen  and  far-commanding  summit, 
and  certainly  the  exaltation  of  his  language,  and  the  fervor 
of  his  spirit,  seemed  sometimes  those  of  one  who  was  behold- 
ing a  "  little  of  the  glory  of  the  place ;"  but;  alas !  the  clouds 
were  perpetually  gathering  again,  and  many  maintained  that 
the  shepherds  Watchful  and  Experience  (whatever  Sincere 
might  have  done)  had  not  bid  him  "welcome  to  the  Delectable 
Mountains,"  and  that  he  had  mistaken  Mount  Clear  for  Mount 
Error,  which  hangs  over  a  steep  precipice,  and  whence  many 
strong  men  have  been  hurled  headlong,  and  dashed  to  pieces 
at  the  bottom. 

It  was  certainly  a  rapid,  a  strange,  a  fearful  "  progress," 
that  of  our  great-hearted  pilgrim  during  the  ten  last  years  of 
his  life.  What  giants  he  wrestled  with  and  subdued — what 
defiles  of  fear  and  danger  he  passed — what  hills  of  difficulty 
as  well  as  of  delight  he  surmounted— -what  temptations  he 
resisted  and  defied— what  by-paths,  alas  !  too,  at  times  he  was 
led  to  explore  !  All  subjects  passed  before  him  like  the  ani- 
mals coming  to  be  named  of  Adam,  and  were  scanned  and 


60  A    CONSTELLATION    OF    SACKED    At  THORS. 


classified,  if  not  exhausted ;  all  methods  of  "  concluding" 
men  into  the  obedience  of  his  form  of  the  faith  were  tried ; — 
now  he  "  piped"  his  Pan's  pipe  to  the  mighty  London,  that  its 
inhabitants  might  dance ;  now  he  "  mourned"  to  them  his  wild 
prophetic  wail,  that  they  might  lament.  All  varieties  of 
character  he  met  with  and  sought  to  gain — all  places  he 
visited — all  varieties  of  treatment  and  experience  he  encoun- 
tered and  tried  to  turn  to  high  spiritual  account.  We  see  him 
now  preaching  among  the  wildernesses  of  Golloway,  and 
seeming  a  Renwick  Redivivus,  and  now,  Samson-like,  over- 
throwing the  Church  of  Kirkcaldy,  by  the  mere  pressure  pro- 
duced by  his  popularity.  Now  he  is  seen  by  Hazlitt  laying 
his  giant  limbs  on  a  bench  in  the  lobby  of  the  Black  Bull, 
Edinburgh  ;  and  now,  at  five  in  the  morning,  in  the  same  city, 
ere  the  sun  has  climbed  the  back  of  the  couchant  lion  of  Ar- 
thur Seat,  or  turned  the  flag  floating  o'er  the  Castle  into  fire, 
he  is  addressing  thousands  in  the  West  Church  on  the  glori- 
ous and  dreadful  advent  of  a  Brighter  Sun  from  heaven. 
Now  we  see  him  (as  our  informant  did)  sitting  at  his  own  hos- 
pitable morning  board,  surrounded  by  a  score  of  disciples, 
holding  a  child  on  his  knee,  a  tea-pot  in  his  hand,  and,  with 
head  and  shoulders  towering  over  the  rest,  pouring  out  the 
while  the  strong  element  of  his  conversation.  Now  we  watch 
him  shaking  farewell  hands  with  Carlyle,  his  early  friend, 
whom  he  has  in  vain  sought  to  convert  to  his  views,  and  say- 
ing with  a  sigh,  "  I  must  go  up  this  hill  Difficulty  ;  thou  art 
in  danger  of  reaching  a  certain  wide  field,  full  of  dark  moun- 
tains, where  thou  mayest  stumble  and  fall,  and  rise  no  more." 
Now  he  pleads  his  cause  before  the  judicatories  of  the  Church 
of  Scotland  where  he  is  sisted  for  error,  but  pleads  it  in  vain ; 
and  in  the  afternoon  of  the  day  on  which  he  has  been  cast  out 
from  her  pale,  stands  up  with  tears  in  his  eyes,  and  preaches 
the  gospel  in  his  own  native  Annan  to  weeping  crowds.  Now 
he  prevents  the  dawning  to  translate  "  Ben  Ezra"  into  Eng- 
lish, and  to  prefix  to  it  that  noble  apology,  for  the  Personal 
Advent,  which  a  Milton's  ink  might  have  written  and  a  mar- 
tyr's blood  sealed.  Now  he  appears,  after  years  of  estrange- 
ment, before  the  view  of  his  ancient  ally,  Carlyle,  suddenly  as 
an  apparition,  in  one  of  the  parks,  grey-haired  with  anguish, 
pale  and  thin  as  a  spectre,  blasted,  but  blasted  with  celestial 


EDWARD    IRVINv?.  61 


fire,  and  they  renew  friendly  intercourse  for  one  solemn  hour, 
and  then  part  for  ever.  And  now  he  expires  in  Glasgow,  pant- 
ing to  keep  some  dream-made  appointment  in  Edinburgh, 
whither  he  was  bound,  but  saying  at  last,  with  childlike  resigna- 
tion, "  Living  or  dying,  I  am  the  Lord's." 

From  his  life,  thus  cursorily  outlined,  we  pass  to  say  a  few 
words  about  his  works,  and  genius,  and  purpose.  In  compar- 
ing the  divines  of  the  seventeenth  century  with  those  of  our 
own  day,  there  is  nothing  more  remarkable  than  this — the 
vastly  greater  amount  of  good  literature  produced  by  the  for- 
mer. They  were  not,  to  be  sure,  so  much  engrossed  with 
soirees,  Exeter-Hall  meetings,  and  visits,  as  the  present  race; 
but  their  pulpit  preparations  were  far  more  laborious,  and  yet 
they  found  time  for  works  of  solid  worth  and  colossal  size. 
Our  divines,  too,  are  determined  to  print,  but  what  flimsy  pro- 
ductions theirs  in  general  arc,  in  comparison  with  the  writings 
of  Howe,  Charnock,  Barrow,  and  Taylor  !  There  is  more 
matter  in  ten  of  Charnock's  massive  folio  pages,  than  in  all 
that  Dr.  Gumming  has  hitherto  published.  Chalmers  and 
Irving,  of  course,  are  writers  of  a  higher  order,  but  even 
their  works  cannot  be  named  beside  those  of  our  elder  theolo- 
gians, whether  in  learning,  in  genius,  in  power,  in  practical 
effect,  or  even  in  polish.  In  proof  of  our  statement,  we  invite 
comparison  between  Chalmers's  "  Astronomical  Discourses" 
or  Irving's  "Orations"  and  the  "Christian  Life"  by  old 
John  Scott ;  and,  waiving  the  question  as  to  which  of  the 
three  possesses  the  greatest  intellectual  power  and  eloquence, 
we  challenge  superiority  on  behalf  of  the  elder,  even  in  respect 
of  correctness,  grace,  and  every  minor  merit  of  style.  Vain 
to  say  that  the  works  of  Chalmers  and  Irving  were  written  in 
the  intervals  of  varied  and  harassing  occupations.  So  were 
those  of  the  old  divines.  Vain  to  say  that  in  the  Scottish 
schools  and  colleges,  at  the  beginning  of  this  century,  little 
attention  was  paid  to  composition — in  the  schools  and  colleges 
of  the  seventeenth  century  we  believe  there  was  still  less. 
The  true  reasons  are  to  be  found  in  the  simple  fact,  that  these 
olden  men  were  men  of  a  still  higher  order  of  intellect — that, 
besides,  they  had  more  thoroughly  trained  themselves,  and 
that  a  still  loftier  earnestness  in  their  hearts  was  strengthened 
and  inflamed  by  the  influences  of  a  sterner  age.  As  Milton 


62  A    CONSTELLATION    OF    SACRED    AUTHORS. 


to  Bailey  and  Tennyson,  do  Howe  and  Barrow  stand  to  Chal- 
mers and  Irving. 

Yet  we  moan  not  to  deny  that  some  of  Irving's  productions 
are  worthy,  not  only  of  his  floating  reputation,  but  of  that  gift 
in  him  which  was  never  fully  developed,  or  at  least  never  com- 
pletely displayed.  In  all  his  writings  you  see  a  man  of  the 
present  wearing  the  armor  of  the  past ;  but  it  is  a  proof  of  his 
power,  that,  although  he  wears  it  awkwardly,  he  never  sinks 
under  the  load.  It  is  not  a  David  clad  in  a  Goliath's  arms, 
and  overwhelmed  by  them;  it  is  the  shepherd-giant,  Eliab, 
David's  brother,  not  yet  at  home  in  a  panoply  which  is  not 
too  large  for  his  limbs,  but  for  wearing  which  a  peaceful  pro- 
fession and  period  had  not  prepared  him.  Irving,  in  native 
power,  was  only,  we  think,  a  little  lower  than  the  men  of  the 
Elizabethan  period,  and  of  the  next  two  reigns.  He  was  ori- 
ginally of  a  similar  order  of  genius,  but  he  had  given  that 
genius  a  less  severe  and  laborious  culture,  and  he  had  fallen 
upon  an  age  adverse  for  its  display.  Hence,  even  his  best 
writings,  when  compared  to  theirs,  have  a  certain  stiff,  imita- 
tive, and  convulsive  air.  There  is  nothing  false  in  any  of 
them,  but  there  is  something/era*/  in  most.  You  feel  always 
how  much  better  Irving's  noble,  generous  thoughts  would  have 
looked,  had  he  expressed  them  in  the  language  of  his  own  day. 
Burke  had  as  big  a  heart,  a  far  subtler  intellect,  and  richer 
imagination  than  Irving,  and  yet  how  few  innovations,  and 
fewer  archaisms,  has  he  ventured  to  introduce  into  his  style. 
Hall  and  Foster,  too,  are  as  pure  writers  as  they  are  powerful 
thinkers.  Thus,  too,  felt  the  public,  and  hence  the  boundless 
popularity  of  the  man  was  not  transferred  to  his  books.  His 
two  best  productions  are,  unquestionably,  his  Prefaces  tD 
"  Home  on  the  Psalms,"  and  to  "  Ben  Ezra."  Nothing  can 
be  finer  than  his  defence  of  David,  and  his  panegyric — itself  a 
lyric — on  his  psalms  in  the  former,  and  the  apostolic  dignity, 
depth,  and  earnestness,  which  distinguish  the  latter.  Why 
are  these,  and  some  of  his  other  smaller  works,  not  reprinted  ? 

The  genius  of  Irving  was  not  of  the  purely  poetical  sort,  it 
was  rather  of  that  lofty  degre.e  of  the  oratorical  which  verges 
on  the  poetical.  In  other  words,  it  was  more  intense  than 
wide.  His  mind  was  deeper  than  that  of  Chalmers,  but  not 
so  broad  or  so  genial — it  was  in  some  departments  more  pow- 


EDWARD    IKA'ING.  63 


erful,  but  not  so  practical.  Many  of  his  ideas,  he  rejoiced 
to  see,  as  he  said,  "  looming  through  a  mist."  Even  the 
poetry  that  was  in  him  was  rather  of  the  lyrical,  than  of  the 
epic  or  dramatic  sort.  The  lyrical  poet  does  not  look  abroad 
upon  universality — he  looks  straight  up  from  his  lyre — some 
intense  idea  at  once  insulates  and  inflames  him,  and  his  poetry 
arises  bright,  keen,  and  narrow,  as  a  tongue  of  fire  from  the 
altar  of  a  sacrifice.  It  was  so  with  the  prose  of  Irving ;  his 
flights  were  lofty,  perpendicular,  and  short-lived.  He  has  left 
very  few  of  those  long,  swelling,  sustained,  and  victorious  pas- 
sages which  characterise  the  very  highest  of  our  religious  au- 
thors, nor,  on  the  other  hand,  are  his  pages  thick  with  sudden 
and  memorable  felicities  of  thought.  They  are  chiefly  valua- 
ble for  those  brief  patches  of  beauty,  and  bursts  of  personal 
feeling  and  passion,  which  recall  most  forcibly  to  those  who 
heard  him  the  remarkable  appearance  and  unequalled  elocution 
of  the  man.  For,  emphatically,  he  himself  was  "  the  Epistle." 
We  admit  most  frankly,  even  though  the  admission  should 
have  the  effect  of  producing  distrust  in  our  own  capacity  of 
criticising  one  whom  we  never  saw,  that,  to  know  his  genius 
fully,  it  was  necessary  to  have  seen  and  heard  him — only  those 
who  did  so  are,  we  believe,  able  to  appreciate  the  whole  power 
that  was  condensed  in  that  marvellous  "  earthen  vessel,"  the 
appearance  of  which,  especially  in  his  loftier  moods,  suggested 
an  energy  within,  and  a  possibility  before  him,  which  made 
his  works,  and  even  his  public  preachings,  seem  poor  in  the 
comparison.  Let  us  remember,  too,  the  age  at  which  he  was 
removed.  He  was  barely  forty-two,  an  age  when  nine-tenths 
of  clever  men  have  not  even  begun  to  publish.  And  he  had 
advanced  at  such  a  rate.  It  was  true  that  latterly  he  fell 
into  a  singular  hallucination,  or,  at  least,  a  one-sidedness.  A 
gentleman  told  us,  that,  calling  on  him  once,  and  complaining 
that  his  published  writings  were  not  quite  worthy  of  his  fame, 
Irving  pointed  to  a  mass  of  MS.  below  his  study  table,  and  said, 
"  Look  here,  sir !  There  are  there  scores  of  sermons  incom- 
parably superior  to  aught  I  have  published.  But  when  I  wrote 
them  I  was  under  the  impression  that  I  must  fight  God's 
cause  with  the  weapons  of  eloquence  and  carnal  wisdom ;  I 
have  learned  otherwise  since,  sir,  and  believe  that  the  simpler 
and  humbler  I  am  in  my  language,  God  will  prosper  my  ser- 


64  A    CONSTELLATION    OF    SACRED    AUTHORS. 


mons  and  writings  more;  according  to  that  Scripture,  'When 
I  am  weak,  then  am  I  strong.'  "  So  far  he  was  right,  but  so 
far  also  he  was  wrong;  and  in  a  short  time,  had  he  lived,  he 
would  have  come  to  the  golden  mean.  No  preacher  can  be 
too  simple,  and  none  too  sublime.  Every  preacher,  who  is 
able,  should,  by  turns,  be  both.  No  writer  can  be  too  clear, 
and  none  too  profound ;  and  every  writer  should  seek,  if  he 
has  capacity,  to  be  both.  The  author  of  that  little  card  to 
Philemon,  wrote  also  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans.  Irving 
might,  and  would,  had  God  spared  his  life,  have  attained  a 
mode  of  writing,  which,  by  turns,  would  have  attracted  infants, 
and  overpowered  philosophers — made  a  Mary  weep  and  a  Felix 
tremble — a  child,  like  Timothy,  prefer  it  to  the  instructions 
of  his  grandmother  Lois,  and  a  doubter,  like  Thomas,  cry  out, 
"My  Lord  and  my  God." 

To  enter  into  a  consideration  of  his  creed,  we  have  not  room, 
and  it  might  besides  involve  us  in  controversy.  In  some  points 
we  deem  him  to  have  been  deeply  and  even  fearfully  mistaken, 
and  his  wildest  errors,  of  course,  were  most  popular  among 
the  weak ;  but  in  others,  if  he  was  in  error,  his  errors  were 
not  deadly,  and  he  erred  in  good  company.  But,  whatever 
were  or  were  not  his  mistakes,  of  one  thing  there  could  be  no 
doubt.  He  was  in  earnest,  and  he  strove  to  infuse  his  earnest- 
ness into  the  age.  In  another  part  of  this  volume,  discoursing 
of  Wilson,  we  have  said  that  his  wondrous  powers  were  neu- 
tralised through  his  want  of  concentrated  purpose ;  but  cer- 
tainly this  cannot  be  charged  against  Irving.  His  objects 
during  his  life  seem  to  have  been  two.  Carlyle  says,  "This 
man  strove  to  be  a  Christian  priest."  This  was  his  first  but 
not  his  only  purpose.  He  strove,  secondly,  to  be  a  Christian 
prophet.  Believing  that  the  end  of  our  present  cycle  of 
Christianity  was  at  hand,  and  that  God  was  about  to  intro- 
duce a  new  and  most  mighty  dispensation,  he  felt  impelled  to 
proclaim  that  old  things  were  passed  away,  and  that  all  things 
were  becoming  new.  This  he  did  with  all  the  energy  of  his 
nature.  He  smote  with  his  hand — he  stamped  with  his  foot — 
he  wept — he  cried  aloud  and  spared  not — he  rose  early  and 
sat  late — he  exhausted  his  entire  energies,  and  gained  an  early 
grave  in  the  proclamation  of  his  message.  The  mantle  of  the 
Baptist  seemed  to  have  descended  on  him,  and  his  sermons 


EDWAUD    IRVING.  65 


ceased  to  be  compositions,  and  became  cries — the  cues  of  fierce 
protest,  stern  injunction,  and  fire-eyed  haste  : — "  Repent  ye  ! 
Repent  ye  !  The  Kingdom  of  Heaven  is  at  hand."  How  far 
his  impressions  on  this  subject  were  correct,  is  a  question  on 
which  we  enter  not  now.  But  surely  if  Carlyle — the  godless 
prophet  of  his  period,  the  cursing  Balaam  of  his  day — demand 
and  deserve  credit  for  the  half-insane  sincerity  with  which  he 
recites  his  lesson  of  despair,  Irving  must  be  much  more  ad- 
mired for  his  earnestness,  as,  like  the  wild  eyed  prophet  who 
ran  round  doomed  Jerusalem,  crying  out,  "Wo,  wo,"  till  he 
sank  down  in  death,  he  spent  his  last  breath  in  crying  "  Wo, 
wo,  wo,  to  the  inhabiters  of  the  earth,  because  of  the  trumpets 
which  are  soon  to  sound,  and  the  vials  of  vengeance  which  are 
soon  to  be  outpoured." 

Vain  perhaps  the  inquiry,  had  he  lived,  what  would  have 
been  his  career?  Many  may  be  disposed  to  say  "Bedlam." 
We  think  not.  Irving  had,  indeed,  his  deep  hallucinations, 
and  died  under  them ;  but  he  was  a  man  still  in  his  prime,  his 
mind  retained  much  of  its  original  vigor  ;  these  hallucinations 
were  only  mists,  which  had  strangled  his  sun  at  noon,  and 
would  have  passed  away,  and  left  the  orb  brighter,  and  shining 
with  a  tenderer  light  than  before.  Others  may  say  "Popery." 
We  trow  not.  He  had  too  much  Scotch  sagacity,  whatever 
some  of  his  followers  may  have,  ever  to  become  the  bond-slave 
of  its  degrading  and  mind-murdering  superstitions.  Carlyle, 
we  know,  supposes  that  at  the  time  of  his  death  Irving  was 
ripe  for  that  transfigured  negation,  that  golden  No,  which  he 
calls  his  creed.  Here,  too,  we  demur.  That  Irving  admired 
and  loved  Carlyle,  is  notorious,  but  that  a  nature  so  enthu- 
siastic, affectionate,  sanguine,  trustful,  and  holy,  could  ever 
have  been  satisfied  with  Carlylcism,  is  to  us  inconceivable. 
Had  he  even,  like  Samson,  been  seduced  under  cloud  of  night 
into  that  city  No,  when  his  senses  returned  in  the  morning,  he 
would  have  arisen  in  wrath,  shaken  himself  as  at  other  times, 
and  carried  away  its  gates  with  him  in  his  retreat.  A  man 
like  Irving  would,  we  verily  believe,  rather  have  died  trailing 
the  car  of  Juggernaut,  than  have  lived  trusting  to  the  tender 
mercies  of  a  system  which  stereotypes  despair,  and  in  banish- 
ing God  out  of  the  universe,  reduces  man  to  a  hopeless  puzzle, 
and  life  to  a  miserable  dream. 


66  A    CONSTELLATION    OF    SACRED    AUTHOR?. 


We  venture  to  say,  that  had  living's  life  been  spared  he 
would  have  forsaken  his  wilder  nostrums,  rid  himself  of  the 
silly  people  around  him,  and  calmed  and  sobered  down  into 
one  of  the  noblest  specimens  of  enlightened,  sanctified,  hum- 
ble, Christ-like  humanity  which  our  age  or  any  other  has  seen. 
He  had  the  elements  of  all  this  within  him.  His  heart  was 
as  warm  as  his  genius  was  powerful.  If  in  his  pulpit  efforts 
he  sometimes  seemed  touching  upon  the  angel,  in  private  life, 
and  in  the  undress  of  his  mind,  he  "became  as  a  little  child." 
A  thousand  stories  are  extant  of  his  generosity — his  liberality 
— his  forbearance — his  simplicity,  as  well  as  of  his  piety  and 
zeal.  But  it  seemed  good  to  Eternal  Providence  that  his 
career  should  be  as  short  as  it  was  chequered,  brilliant,  and 
strange.  And  what,  although  he  founded  no  sect  deserving  the 
name,  wrought  no  deliverance  on  the  earth,  reared  no  pile  of 
literary  or  of  theological  handiwork — what,  although  he  died 
sick  of  his  associates,  of  his  position,  and  of  some  of  his  cher- 
ished doctrines,  and  was  emphatically  "at  sear — he  had  lived, 
on  the  whole,  a  heroic  life;  his  errors  themselves  had  pro- 
claimed the  nobility  of  his  nature ;  he  died  a  meek  and  humble 
disciple  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  ages  may  elapse  ere  the  Church 
shall  see  his  like  again.  Of  many  lowly  individuals,  it  can 
bo  truly  said,  as  Christ  said  of  the  woman,  "  she  hath  done 
what  she  could;"  but  of  how  few  men  of  Irving's  powers,  ac- 
complishments, and  splendid  fame,  can  it  be  affirmed  that  duty 
was  ever  dearer  to  him  than  delight — that  his  purpose  ever 
towered  more  loftily  before  him  than  his  personal  desires — 
that  he  loved  God  better  than  himself — that  emphatically  "  he 
did  what  he  could  ?"  And  the  time  has  come  when  even  those 
who  most  deeply  differed  from  him  in  opinion,  and  do  still  in 
many  things  differ,  may  unite  with  his  ardent  worshippers  in 
proclaiming  him  a  man  of  whom  the  world  was  not  worthy. 

Note. — We  have  called  Irving  a  comet ;  but,  unlike  a  comet,  his  tail 
has  not  been  his  brightest  or  largest  portion.  With  a  few  exceptions, 
the  present  race  of  Irvingites  are,  we  fear,  as  feeble,  conceited,  and  su- 
perstitious a  set  of  religionists  as  exists.  Even  their  love  and  charity, 
which  they  parade  so  much,  are  diseased — too  "  sweet  to  be  whole- 
some." Edward  Irving  would  not  now  march  through  Coventry  with 
such  semi-papistic — semi-Swedenborgian  hybrids.  They  shelter  un- 
der his  name  ;  but  were  his  name  fully  known  it  would  crush  them. 
Alas !  how  often  do  monkeys  gibber  and  make  mouths  and  attempt 
mimicries  behind  the  back  of  a  man. 


ISAAC    TAYLOR.  67 


NO.  II.-ISAAC  TAYLOR. 

To  commence  our  review  of  the  great  author  of  the  "  Satur- 
day Evening  "  and  his  works,  we  have  selected  an  appropriate 
season — a  Saturday  evening — after  a  day  of  constant  and  hard 
intellectual  work — with  the  mists  of  autumn  hanging  in  divine 
festoons  over  the  sky,  and  concealing  the  stars  which  had 
begun  lately  to  come  out  from  their  grave  of  summer  sun- 
shine, and  to  shine  like  the  risen  and  glorified  dead  in  the 
serene  heaven — and  with  the  prospects  of  the  day  sacred  to 
the  memory  of  the  resurrection  of  Jesus  casting  their  gentle 
shadow  forward  over  our  souls.  Thus,  ere  soothing  ourselves 
to  calm  and  rest  as  we  do  every  Saturday  evening,  by  perusing 
some  of  the  glorious  words  of  Bunyan,  the  dreamer  of  Elstowe, 
let  us  first  begin  our  tribute  to  the  dreamer,  scarcely  less  ima- 
ginative, of  Stamford  Rivers. 

Taylor  never,  so  far  as  we  know,  mounted  a  pulpit  or 
preached  a  sermon.  Bvt  a  Christian  priest,  alike  by  lineage 
and  by  nature,  and  by  training,  he  unquestionably  is.  He  is 
one  of  the  few  of  his  surpassing  order  of  intellect  who  in  the 
present  day  are  Christians,  whatever  they  may  avow  them- 
selves to  be.  He  is  not  only  a  Christian,  but  a  Christian  of 
the  most  decided  kind,  and  has  gathered  up  the  despised 
names  of  "saint,"  "fanatic,"  &c.,  and  bound  them  as  a  crown 
unto  him.  In  search  of  an  ideal  of  Christianity,  he  has 
looked  at  and  bowed  aside  most  of  our  modern  forms  of  it — 
tarried  reverently  near  the  Reformation  for  a  season,  and  then 
passed  on  his  way — gone  shuddering,  but  keenly  observant, 
through  the  midst  of  the  mediaeval  ages — paused  almost 
patronisingly  over  the  Patristic  period— and  at  last  fixed  his 
thought  at  that  singular  point  where  the  Primitive  began  to 
merge  into  the  Patristic,  where  the  Christ  seemed  to  sink  back 
into  the  Moses,  and  there  raised  his  Eureka,  and  set  up  his 
pillar.  We  wish  that  he  had  gone  back  a  little  farther,  and 
striven  to  reproduce  and  revive  the  naked  substance  of  Chris- 
tianity, as  it  was  left  by  Jesus  of  Nazareth  himself;  but  still 
we  feel  profoundly  grateful  for  the  elaborate  and  argumenta- 
tive statements  he  has  given  in  proof  of  the  vitality  which 


68  A    CONSTELLATION    OF    SACRED    AUT11DRS. 


continued  to  breathe  in  Christianity  till  the  anti-Christian 
leaven  had  fairly  begun  to  work ;  and  no  less  for  the  exhibi- 
tion he  has  presented  us  of  the  causes  of  the  Church's  decline. 
Taylor,  while  a  Briton  by  birth,  is  in  soul  and  essence  an 
Orientalist.  His  sympathies,  his  genius,  his  scholarship,  his 
temperament,  his  peculiar  kind  of  piety,  all  link  him  to  Pales- 
tine, and  the  lands  still  nearer  the  sun,  where  man  was  first 
let  down  from  heaven — where  he  spent  his  brief  Paradisal 
period — where  he  fell — and  whence  the  original  currents  of 
the  race  flowed  westward,  diverging  and  deepening  as  they 
flowed.  Like  the  window  of  the  prophet  Daniel,  Taylor  has 
his  imagination  and  heart  always  "  standing  open  towards  Je- 
rusalem." Like  Christian  in  the  "  Pilgrim,"  he  sleeps  in  a 
chamber  looking  toward  the  east.  His  imagery  and  language 
are  oriental — "  barbaric  pearl  and  gold."  We  know  not  if  he 
ever  traveled  to  the  lands  of  his  dreams  ;  but  certain  we  are, 
that  no  man  of  this  century  would  derive  more  solemn  plea- 
sure from  such  a  journey.  We  love  to  fancy  him  sailing  on 
the  Lake  of  Galilee,  and  conjecturing  which  of  the  sunburnt 
mountains  around  was  that  to  which  the  Saviour  went  up  to 
pray,  "himself  alone;"  or  pacing,  in  profound  awe  and 
silence,  the  beach  of  that  sea  which  was  once  Sodom ;  or  sit- 
ting by  Jacob's  well ;  or  looking  down  from  the  top  of  Tabor 
on  the  gorge  of  Endor,  and  the  beautiful  plain  of  Jezreel ;  or 
prostrate  in  prayer  under  the  trees  of  Gethsemane ;  or  walk- 
ing out  pensive  and  alone,  towards  Emmaus ;  or  looking  from 
some  giant  peak  in  Lebanon  eastward,  and  northward,  and 
southward,  and  westward ;  or  marking  the  windings  of  the 
infant  Jordan ;  or  mounting  a  hill  of  Moab  in  search  of  Pis- 
gah;  or  bathing  in  "  Abana  and  Pharpar,  lucid  streams;"  or 
climbing  the  savage  Sinai,  by  the  very  path  up  which  Moses 
trembled,  and  looking  abroad  from  its  summit  upon  peaks, 
and  crags,  and  valleys,  and  deserts,  bare  as  a  lunar  landscape, 
and  which  the  ire  of  Heaven  seems  to  have  crossed  over  in  a 
scorching  whirlwind,  and  made  for  ever  desolate  !  Few  books 
of  travels  to  Palestine  have  in  them  much  poetry.  M'Cheyne, 
for  instance,  passes  through  all  these  haunted  spots,  and  seems, 
and  is,  deeply  affected  by  their  memories  ;  but,  being  utterly 
destitute  of  genuine  imagination,  he  fails  in  making  us  realize 
the  solemn  scenery  of  the  promised  land — his  enthusiasm  is 


ISAAC    TAYLOR.  69 


entirely  pious,  instead  of  being  a  compound  of  the  pious  and 
the  poetical,  as  Taylor's  would  be.  Lamartine  and  Chateau- 
briand go  to  the  other  extreme,  and  become  nauseously  senti- 
mental. Warburton  (in  the  "  Crescent  and  Cross  ")  and  Dis- 
raeli (in  "  Tancred  ")  come  nearer  to  our  ideal.  But  we  wait 
for  the  avatar  of  the  true  traveler  and  reporter  of  his  travels 
through  that  wondrous  land,  where  God  did  desire  to  dwell — 
where  he  took  on  him  flesh,  and  looked  at  his  own  creation 
through  human  eyes — and  where  he  shall,  we  believe,  dwell 
again,  at  that  prophetic  period,  when  once  more  to  Jerusalem 
shall  the  tribes  go  up,  and  when  the  "  Holy  City,"  inhabited 
by  the  "  Holy  One  of  Israel,"  shall  become  the  praise  and  the 
joy,  the  centre  and  the  glory,  not  of  the  earth  only,  but  of 
the  universe ! 

To  the  poetic  enthusiasm  and  piety  of  the  East,  Taylor  has 
annexed  much  of  the  acute  intellect,  balancing  logic,  and 
varied  culture  of  the  West.  Yet,  we  confess,  we  like  him 
always  best  when  he  is  following  the  original  bent  of  his  mind. 
We  care  very  little  for  his  opinions  on  such  men  as  Chalmers 
and  Foster.  His  idiosyncrasy  is  so  different,  that  he  does  not 
understand,  although  he  loves  them  both ;  nor,  perhaps,  did 
either  of  them  fully  comprehend  him.  Hence,  in  his  articles 
on  them  in  the  "  North  British  Review,"  he  talks  very  labori- 
ously, very  eloquently,  and,  to  appearance,  very  profoundly 
about  them,  as  if  he  were  a  kindred  spirit.  Whereas,  in  fact, 
Chalmers  was  a  resuscitated  apostle  of  the  first  century. 
Foster  was,  in  all  but  superstition,  a  monk  of  the  tenth.  Tay- 
lor is  a  Platonic  Christian  of  the  second,  or  Justin  Martyr 
age.  Chalmers  was  the  genius  of  activity,  seeking  to  make 
things  better  ;  Foster  was  stiffened  into  an  attitude  of  solitary 
protest  and  stationary  wonder  at  the  evils  which  are  in  the 
world;  while  Taylor  calmly  and  dispassionately,  yet  with 
enthusiastic  hope,  contemplates  its  good  and  its  evil  as  a 
whole.  Often,  indeed,  he  leaves  this  quiet  collateral  attitude, 
and  rushes  down  into  the  field  of  action  or  controversy ;  but 
it  is  awkwardly — and  his  efforts,  like  those  of  elephants  in  the 
battles  of  yore,  are  sometimes  less  destructive  to  foes  than  to 
friends.  His  logic  is  often  clumsy ;  his  satire,  sarcasm,  and 
invective,  are  heavy ;  his  controversial  weapon  is  as  blunt  as 
it  is  ponderous;  his  style  is  often  cumbered  and  involved; 


70  A    CONSTELLATION    OF    SACRED    AUTHORS. 


but  in  that  mood  of  mind  partly  poetic,  partly  philosophic, 
partly  devout,  in  which  the  Essenes  and  ancient  mystics  in- 
dulged, he  stands  among  the  authors  of  this  age  facile  prin- 
ceps.  He  can  reason  ;  but  he  is  better  and  truer  to  himself 
when  he  broods,  with  half-shut  dreamy  eye,  as  did  his  spirit- 
ual fathers  under  the  divine  evenings  of  the  East,  when  the 
moon  was  rising  over  the  mountains  of  Moab,  or  as  the  stars 
were  leaning  upon  Sinai,  now  silent  in  his  age,  and  wrapt  as 
in  eternal  wonder,  at  the  memory  of  the  more  awful  burden 
of  wrath  and  glory  which  once  rested  for  forty  days  and  forty 
nights  upon  his  quaking  summit. 

Taylor  is  often  speculating  about  the  characteristics  and 
tendencies  of  the  present  age.  These  speculations  are  always 
ingenious,  always  eloquently  expressed,  sometimes  just  and 
profound.  But,  more  frequently,  a  certain  vague  and  dim  un- 
reality seems  to  swathe  them,  and  you  are  tempted  to  apply 
to  them  the  expression,  less  truly  applied  to  the  thought  of 
Coleridge,  "  philosophic  moonshine."  He  cannot  deal  clearly 
or  cogently  with  the  present ;  his  congenial  fields  are  the  past 
and  the  future.  His  soul  loves  to  penetrate  the  silent  seas  of 
the  past,  and  to  seek  to  resuscitate  the  mighty  primeval  forms 
which  once  peopled  them,  fie  talks  to  Moses  and 'Isaiah,  to 
Peter,  and  John,  and  Paul,  to  Justin  Martyr,  to  Origen,  to 
Augustine,  and  to  Chrysostom,  as  to  brethren  and  neighbors. 
If  you  can  hardly  say  of  him,  with  Spenser — 

"The  wars  be  well  remember'd  of  King  Nine. 
Of  old  Assaracus,  and  Inachus  divine," 

yet  his  memory,  his  fancy,  and  his  heart  have  gone  back  a 
great  way,  and  have  collected  very  rich  resurrection  spoils. 
Nor  is  he  less  trustworthy,  or  delightful  in  his  views  of  the 
future.  He  is  a  Millennarian.  We  do  not  mean  that  he  is  as 
certain  as  was  Edward  Irving,  or  as  hopeful  as  we  are,  of  the 
Pre-millennial  Advent ;  although  various  passages  in  his  wri- 
tings would  indicate  that  he  inclines  to  that  ancient  hope  of 
the  Church.  But  he  is  a  profound  believer  in  the  fact  that  a 
long  bright  evening  is  to  succeed  this  dark  and  stormy  day, 
and  that  Christianity  is  to  gain  its  final  triumph  through 
supernatural  aid  and  intervention.  On  this  hope  bespeaks; 


ISAAC    TAYLOR.  71 


and  beautiful  are  many  of  his  excursions  into  that  Promised 
Land,  which  lies  beyond  the  red  Jordan  of  the  "  Last  Conflict 
of  Great  Principles."  Our  wonder  is,  that,  with  these  views, 
Taylor  is  so  sanguine  in  his  expectation  of  good  from  some  of 
the  methods  of  spreading  or  defending  Christianity  which  at 
present  prevail.  He  believes  that  we  are  to  have  help  from 
on  high ;  and  yet  he  seems  hardly  to  believe  that  we  absolutely 
need  it,  and  that  all  our  present  schemes  and  buttresses  can 
only  break  the  wave  of  assault,  but  cannot  increase  much  far- 
ther the  aggressive  power  of  our  faith. 

We  shall  never  forget  our  first  perusal  of  the  "  Natural 
History  of  Enthusiasm."  It  was  in  golden  summer-tide,  in 
the  fair  city  of  Perth,  with  the  Tay  adding  its  fine  murmured 
symphony,  and  with  the  blood  of  eighteen  beating  almost 
audibly  in  our  veins,  as  we  read  aloud  some  of  its  more  glow- 
ing passages.  We  remember  no  prose  work,  with  the  excep- 
tion of  Chalmers's  "  Astronomical  Discourses,"  and  Hazlitt's 
"  Lectures  on  English  Poetry,"  by  which  we  were  ever  so 
much  electrified.  We  did  not  then  perceive,  or  at  least  feel, 
its  faults — the  splendida  vitia  of  its  style,  or  the  hasty  gen- 
eralizations of  much  of  its  thinking;  but  the  compound  it 
presented  of  philosophic  tone,  poetic  genius,  and  pious  spirit, 
was  to  us  then  as  new  as  it  was  welcome.  We  had  waded 
through  much  metaphysics  of  the  Locke  and  Hume  school  as 
through  dusty  sand — we  had  revelled  in  the  poetry  of  Milton, 
Byron,  Cowper,  and  Thomson — we  had  read  all  the  common 
theological  writers — but  here  we  found  a  species  of  writing 
which  seemed  to  include  all  the  elements  which  were  presented 
separately  in  the  other  three  classes,  and  we  were  tempted  to 
cry  Eureka !  Years  and  after-reading  have  somewhat  modi- 
fied our  estimate ;  we  would  not  now  compare  the  "  Natural 
History  of  Enthusiasm,"  for  suggestiveness,  originality,  and 
richness  of  thought,  to  such  books  as  Foster's  "  Essays," 
which  gained  more  slowly  our  admiration.  The  style  now 
seems  to  us  forced  and  unnatural ;  but  still  the  treatise  must 
ever  have  its  place  and  praise  as  a  masterly  and  powerful 
analysis  of  one  of  the  most  singular  phases  of  the  human 
mind ;  perhaps  the  first  upon  the  same  scale  ever  conducted  at 
once  on  philosophical  and  Christian  principles. 

It  added  considerably  at  the  time  to  the  interest  of  this 


72  A    CONSTELLATION    OF    SACRED    AUTHOKS. 


treatise — first,  that  the  author's  name  was  unknown;  and, 
secondly,  that  it  appeared  at — nay,  properly  speaking,  sprang 
out  of — a  period  when  men's  minds  were  much  agitated,  and 
when  many  "  expected  that  the  kingdom  of  God  should  imme- 
diately appear."  Wrapt  in  soft  shadows,  another  great  un- 
known had  come  upon  the  stage.  How  interesting  the  two 
alternatives  presented  !  If  it  was  an  old  friend,  what  a  univer- 
sal genius  to  be  able  to  present  a  face  so  new  !  If  a  new  au- 
thor, and  especially  a  young  one,  what  a  Christian  Colossus 
he  must  be  !  And  then  the  tone  he  assumed  was  very  pecu- 
liar and  exciting — from  its  decision,  its  moderation,  its  avoid- 
ance of  extremes,  and  its  oracular  depth  and  dignity.  He 
seemed  the  very  man  for  the  hour  !  He  commenced  with 
recogising  distinctly  the  existence  and  the  uses  of  genuine  en- 
thusiasm ;  nor  did  he  deny  the  fact  that  there  were  prospects 
in  the  future  of  Christianity  which  might  justify  unbounded 
ardor  of  expectation ;  but,  having  premised  this,  he  proceeded 
to  grasp  the  reins  of  the  rushing  chariot,  to  curb  the  fiery 
steeds,  to  guard  them  by  the  bounds  of  Scripture,  and  to 
guide  them  on  to  the  goal  of  common  sense.  You  saw  evi- 
dences in  the  book  that  the  author  was  one  in  whose  veins  the 
tide  of  enthusiasm  had  originally  boiled  very  strongly ;  but 
who  had,  by  culture,  by  stern  investigation,  and  by  habitual 
submission  to  the  Word  of  God,  modified  and  tained  it ;  so 
that,  while  no  critic  could  call  him  cold,  none  could  accuse 
him  of  undue  warmth.  The  book  consequently  became  very 
popular — was  strongly  commended  by  Dr.  Chalmers  from  his 
chair — was  widely  circulated  and  closely  imitated  by  a  large 
class  of  aspiring  youths.  Hall  alone,  with  his  usual  fastidi- 
ousness, objected  to  the  style,  which,  he  said,  "  wearied  and 
fretted  his  mind,"  and  with  his  usual  acuteness,  saw  and 
pointed  out  proofs  that  the  author  was  seeking  to  disguise 
himself  by  a  terminology  in  part  affected. 

Taylor's  second  work  was  his  "  Saturday  Evening."  We 
shall  speak,  however,  first  of  his  "  Fanaticism."  The  subject 
of  Fanaticism  was  less  pleasing  than  that  of  Enthusiasm,  and 
the  execution  not  so  happy.  In  his  first  work,  his  field  lay 
mainly  in  the  first  three  centuries,  when  the  Christian  Faith 
sat  like  morning  upon  the  mountains — a  dawn  already  indeed 
partially  overcast,  but  still  a  dawn,  fresh,  strong  and  beauti- 


ISAAC  TAYLOR.  73 


ful.  In  his  third,  he  was  compelled  to  pierce  the  shadow  of 
that  deep  eclipse  which  shrouded  religion  and  the  middle  ages 
in  night,  and  during  which  the  baleful  fires  of  superstition 
and  fanaticism  produced  a  horrid  counterfeit  of  day.  In  his 
first  work  you  saw  Stylites  on  his  pillar;  the  religious  hermit 
in  his  cave;  the  enthusiast  meditating  below  the  large  stars 
of  that  sky  which  had  kindled  the  poetic  splendors  of  a  Job. 
In  "  Fanaticism"  you  saw  the  lonely  monk  brooding,  or  ago- 
nising, or  studying,  or  sinning  in  his  gloomy  cell ;  the  Arabian 
soldier  twanging  his  bowstring,  flourishing  his  scimitar,  and 
shouting,  "  No  God  but  Allah,  and  no  prophet  but  Ma- 
homet;" the  stern  Crusader,  with  all  the  passions  of  hell  in 
his  heart  as  he  stepped  from  his  galley  on  the  shore  of  Holy 
Land,  and  expanded  in  the  sultry  atmosphere  the  standard  of 
the  Cross:  the  sullen  inquisitor  dreaming  of  ghastlier  dresses 
for  the  victims  of  future  auto-da-fes,  or  of  drier  dry-pans  and 
slower  fires,  and  deeper  dungeons  for  the  enemies  of  Holy 
Mother  Church ;  and  the  savage  persecutor  lifting  up  his 
torch,  and  with  an  eye  fiercer  than  it,  stepping  forward  to  the 
pile,  and  completing  the  poet's  image  of  the 

"  Pale  martyr  in  his  shirt  of  fire," 

Most  powerful  were  some  of  Taylor's  pictures,  and  profound 
not  a  few  of  his  disquisitions ;  but,  as  a  whole,  the  work 
rather  pained  and  horrified,  than  satisfied  or  delighted.  It 
was  a  faithful  daguerreotype  of  a  disgusting  subject ;  and  a 
portion  of  the  disgust  was  reflected  upon  the  execution,  and 
laid  in  charge  to  the  artist. 

Without  dwelling  on  Taylor's  "  Physical  Theory  of  Another 
Life,"  his  "  Spiritual  Despotism,"  or  his  contributions  to  the 
Tractariau  controversy,  we  come  to  his  best  work,  the  "  Sat- 
urday Evening,"  This  is  a  series  of  most  interesting,  and 
often  profound,  meditations  on  such  subjects  as  the  stars;  the 
future  world ;  the  relation  in  which  our  earth  stands  to  the 
universe ;  and  the  future  struggles  and  triumphs  of  the  church. 
Compared  to  all  the  other  meditations  in  the  language,  those 
of  Taylor  are  Colossal  in  their  merit.  His  chapters  on  the 
vastness  of  the  material  universe  are  particularly  striking. 
No  one  has  better  expressed  the  unostentatious  and  silent 
force  with  which  the  u  Heavens  declare  the  glory  of  God,  and 


74  A    CONSTELLATION    OP    BACHED    AUTHOR 5. 


the  firmament  showeth  his  handiwork."  They  tell  so  much, 
and  that  so  quietly  !  Silently  the  sun  comes  out  of  nis  cham- 
bers ;  silently  the  great  moon  climbs  the  September  air,  and 
silently  she  looks  down  on  the  silvered  sea  and  the  yellow 
corn ;  silently,  one  by  one,  come  forth  the  host  of  heaven  j 
silently  stretches  away  that  stream  of  suns — the  galaxy ; 
silently,  as  ghosts  of  rivers,  do  its  two  arms  diverge,  and  wan- 
der on ;  and  silently  does  even  the  comet,  on  his  fiery  wheels, 
enter  the  shuddering  sky.  Were  it  otherwise,  we  could  not 
endure  their  mighty  speech.  What  ear  could  bear  to  listen 
to  the  thunder  of  the  axle-tree  of  the  sun  as  he  passed  us  by ; 
or  even  to  that  "  sphere  music"  fabled  of  old  to  pervade  the 
universe  ?  Were  it  otherwise,  in  another  sense  still — were  we 
to  become  conversant  with  the  moral  laws  and  conditions  of 
the  Great  Whole — our  state  of  seclusion  would  be  entirely 
broken  up,  and  our  probation  interrupted.  But  here,  too,  all 
is  silence.  And  yet  "  there  is  no  speech  and  no  language 
where  their  voice  is  not  heard."  They  speak  in  concert  and 
perfect  harmony.  Even  the  comet  that  has  abruptly  and  with- 
out warning  swum  into  this  autumn  sky  is  not  contradicting, 
but  confirming,  the  silvery  utterance  of  every  smallest  planet 
that  shivers  out  the  name  "  God"  to  the  listening  night.  They 
speak  constantly — "  day  unto  day  uttering  speech — night  unto 
night  teaching  knowledge" — the  sun  passing  on  to  Sirius,  and 
he  to  Arcturus,  and  Arcturus  to  Ursa  Major  and  his  sons, 
and  they  to  Orion — the  great  revolving  chorus.  They  speak 
universally ;  for  where  is  there  a  spot  so  solitary  where  that 
star  is  not  seen  ?  and  how,  at  this  very  hour,  are  a  thousand 
observatories,  and  ten  thousand  times  ten  thousand  eyes,  gaz- 
ing at  our  fiery  stranger  as  he  is  telling  them  in  his  own  mys- 
terious speech  concerning  his  Creator !  They  speak  with 
divine  majesty ;  and  Taylor,  to  show  this  in  the  most  striking 
manner,  takes  us  away  to  the  remoter  planets  of  the  system, 
where  the  sun  is  faint  and  sickly  with  distance — where  the 
glory  of  alien  firmaments  seeks  to  struggle  through  the  noon  ; 
where,  at  evening,  our  earth  is  seen  afar  off  as  a  dim  trembling 
speck  on  the  verge  of  the  sky ;  and  where,  at  night,  a  solid 
flood  of  splendor  seems  to  burst  from  every  pore  and  crevice 
of  the  crowded  heavens  ! 

Returning  to  the  earth  again,  our  author  fails  not  to  give 


ISAAC    TAYLOR.  75 


her  her  true  place  in  the  august  system.  Little  as  she  rela- 
tively is,  she  has  a  peculiar  importance  as  a  spot  selected  for 
the  development  of  certain  great  moral  purposes  of  the  Al- 
mighty. Here  have  been  announced  tidings  of  vastly  greater 
importance  than  all  these  skies  ever  have  uttered,  or  ever  can. 
These  ancient  heavens,  young  too  as  on  creation's  day,  yet 
cannot  assure  us  of  God's  infinity — only  of  his  prodigious  su- 
periority to  the  children  of  men.  All  the  crowded  space  we 
see  or  can  imagine,  bears  no  more  proportion  to  real  infinitude 
than  a  man's  hand  does  to  the  marble  firmament.  That  sur- 
passing truth  must  come  from  the  profundities  of  our  own  men- 
tal and  moral  nature.  The  heavens  cannot  reveal  the  Father. 
They  show  a  vague  kindness,  floating  to  and  fro;  but  not  a 
special  love  searching  for,  to  embrace,  its  children.  Of  fallen 
stars  they  do  assure  us ;  but  they  tell  us  not  that  WE  have 
fallen  from  a  height  higher  far  than  they.  Concerning  Christ's 
salvation,  too,  they  are  dumb.  The  "  bright  and  morning 
star"  shines  not  amid  those  forests  of  fire.  And  on  man's 
immortality  they  cast  not  a  gleam  of  light :  although  for  ages 
they  have  been  shining  on  his  grave.  For  all  this  intelligence 
we  must  go  below,  or  rather  above  the  stars — 'to  the  Bible — • 
"the  Book  of  God — -say,  rather,  God  of  Books;"  and  to 
this  star  of  Bethlehem,  Taylor  reverently  and  tenderly  con- 
ducts us. 

Years  have  elapsed  since  we  read  the  "  Saturday  Evening," 
and  yet  we  believe  that  in  our  two  last  paragraphs  we  have 
not  misrepresented  the  author's  purport,  although  the  language 
and  imagery  are  our  own.  We  wish  we  had  time  to  proceed 
and  analyze  some  of  the  other  papers,  especially  those  in  which 
he  paints  the  approaching  days  of  earth.  The  author  of  the 
"  Coming  Struggle"  has  terribly  vulgarized  that  field  of  Ar- 
mageddon. How  differently  does  Taylor,  uplifting  as  he  goes 
"  the  shout  of  a  king,"  tread  its  mist-covered  but  magnificent 
plain !  Read,  to  see  this,  the  noble  paper  entitled,  "  The 
Last  Conflict  of  Great  Principles,"  or  one  or  two  of  the  chap- 
ters which  succeed.  We  wish,  too,  that  we  could  follow  his 
daring  but  holy  guidance  in  amid  the  celestial  ardors,  and  the 
heavenly  hierarchies,  rising  (as  in  David  Scott's  immortal  il- 
lustrations of  the  "  Pilgrim's  Progress,)  tier  above  tier,  circle 
above  circle,  gallery  above  gallery,  towards  the  ineffable  blaze 


76  A    CONSTELLATION    OF    SACRED    AUTHORS. 


of  glory  which  terminates  the  view,  and  in  which  other  sys- 
tems, and  firmaments,  and  orders  of  being  are  dimly  discovered, 
as  in  a  shaded  mirror,  or  seen  swimming  like  motes  in  the 
sunbeam.  But  we  forbear,  and  simply  recommend  all  these 
contemplations  of  the  most  contemplative  mind  of  modern 
days  to  our  readers.  Being  "  nothing  if  not  critical,"  we 
might  have  dwelt  on  some  of  Ta}rlor's  faults — on  his  occasional 
affectations  of  manner,  turgidities  of  language,  and  confusions 
of  imagery.  But  this  is  useless,  as,  in  spite  of  all  these,  and 
partly  perhaps  in  consequence  of  them,  he  has  already  obtain- 
ed a  fixed  and  lofty  position  among  our  prose  religious  writers. 
We  shall  merely,  ere  closing  this  paper,  advise  him,  in  the 
name  of  all  his  genuine  admirers,  to  give  up  lecturing  in  pub- 
lic. This  is  a  field  which  most  men  of  his  order  are  gradually 
resigning,  in  weai-iness  or  disgust.  It  is  a  field,  too,  for  which 
he  is  not  specially  or  at  all  qualified.  His  manner  and  de- 
livery are  bad — his  voice  husky,  and  perpetually  interrupted 
by  a  cough — his  matter,  admirable  as  it  seems  in  the  closet, 
falls  fiat  and  dead  on  a  popular  audience;  and,  to  crown  all, 
he  chose  a  subject  precisely  the  worst  he  could  have  selected 
for  such  people  as  haunted  his  lecture-rooms,  many  of  whom 
were  the  genuine  disciples  of  Theodore  Parker  and  George 
Dawson.  He  lectured  ou  the  "Poetry  of  the  Bible;"  and 
his  enlightened  audience  cheered  him  while  he  was  present, 
and  after  their  usual  manner,  abused  him  when  he  had  depart 
ed  (in,  we  trust,  happy  ignorance  of  their  feelings)  from 
amongst  them. 


NO.    III.-ROBERT    HALL. 

EGBERT  HALL  is  a  name  we,  in  common  with  all  Christians 
of  this  century,  of  all  denominations,  deeply  venerate  and  ad- 
mire. We  are  not,  however,  to  be  classed  among  his  idola- 
ters ;  and  this  paper  is  meant  as  a  calm  and  comprehensive 
view  of  what  appear  to  us,  after  many  needful  deductions  from 
the  over-estimates  of  the  past,  including  our  own  in  a  former 


ROBERT  HALL.  77 


paper,  to  bo  his  real  characteristics,  but  in  point  of  merit,  of 
fault,  and  of  simple  deficiency. 

We  labor,  like  all  critics  who  have  never  seen  their  author, 
under  considerable  disadvantages.  "  Knowledge  is  power.'' 
Still  more — craving  Lord  Bacon's  pardon — "  vision  is  power." 
Csesar  said  a  similar  thing  when  he  wrote  Vidi,  vici.  To  see 
is  to  conquer,  if  you  happen  to  have  the  faculty  of  clear,  full, 
conclusive  sight.  In  other  cases,  the  sight  of  a  man  whom 
you  misappreciate,  and,  though  you  have  eyes,  cannot  see,  is 
a  curse  to  your  conception  of  his  character.  You  look  at  him 
through  a  mist  of  prejudice,  which  discolors  his  visage,  and, 
even  when  it  exaggerates,  distorts  his  stature.  Far  other- 
wise with  the  prepared,  yet  unprepossessed  look  of  intelligent 
love.  Love  hears  a  voice  others  cannot  hear,  and  sees  a  hand 
others  cannot  see.  In  every  man  of  genius,  besides  what  he 
says,  and  the  direct  exhibition  he  gives  of  the  stores  of  his 
mind,  there  is  a  certain  indescribable  something — a  prepon- 
derance of  personal  influence — a  mesmeric  affection — a  magi- 
cal charm.  You  feel  that  a  great  spirit  is  beside  you,  even 
though  he  be  talking  mere  commonplace,  or  toying  with  chil- 
dren. Just  as  when  you  are  walking  through  a  wood  at  the 
foot  of  a  mountain,  you  do  not  see  the  mountain,  you  see  only 
glimpses  of  it,  but  you  know  it  is  there ;  in  the  find  old  word, 
you  are  "aware"  of  its  presence;  and,  having  once  seen  (as 
one  who  has  newly  lost  his  burden  continues  for  a  little  to 
imagine  it  on  his  shoulders  still),  you  fancy  you  are  still  see- 
ing it.  This  pressure  of  personal  interest  and  power  always 
dwindles  works  in  the  presence  of  their  authors,  suggests  their 
possible  ideal  of  performance,  and  starts  the  question,  What 
folio  or  library  of  folios  can  enclose  that  soul  ?  The  soul  it- 
self of  the  great  man  often  responds  to  'this  feeling — takes  up 
all  its  past  doings  as  a  little  thing — "  paws"  like  the  war- 
horse  in  Job  after  higher  achievements — and,  like  Byron, 
pants  for  a  lightning-language,  a  quicker,  fierier  cypher,  "  that 
it  may  wreak  its  thought  upon  expression;"  but  is  forced, 
like  him,  to  exclaim — 

"  But,  as  it  is,  I  live  and  die  unheard, 
With  a  most  voiceless  thought,  sheathing  it  as  a  sword." 


78  A    CONSTELLATION    OF    SACRED    AUTHORS 


Those  who  met  and  conversed  with  Robert  Hall  seem  all  to 
have  felt  this  singular  personal  charm — this  stream  of  "  vir- 
tue going  out  of  him" — this  necessary  preponderance  over  his 
company.  Nor  was  this  entirely  the  effect  of  the  pomp  and 
loftiness  of  his  manner  and  bearing,  although  both  were  loftier 
than  perhaps  beseemed  his  Christian  character.  We  have 
known,  indeed,  men  of  mediocre,  and  less  than  mediocre 
talents,  exerting  an  uneasy  and  crushing  influence  over  far  su- 
perior persons,  through  the  sheer  power  of  a  certain  stiff  and 
silent  pomp,  added  to  an  imposing  personal  appearance.  We 
know,  too,  some  men  of  real  genius,  whose  overbearing 
haughtiness  and  determination  to  take  the  lead  in  conversation 
render  them  exceedingly  disagreeable  to  many,  disgusting  to 
pome,  and  yet  command  attention,  if  not  terror,  from  all.  But 
Robert  Hall  belonged  to  neither  of  these  classes.  He  might 
rather  be  ranked  with  those  odd  characters,  whose  mingled 
genius  and  eccentricity  compel  men  to  listen  to  them,  and 
whose  pomp,  and  pride,  and  overbearing  temper,  and  extrava- 
gant bursts,  are  pardoned,  as  theirs,  and  because  they  are 
counterbalanced  by  the  qualities  of  their  better  nature. 

We  have  met  with  some  of  those  who  have  seen  and  heard 
him  talk  and  preach,  and  their  accounts  have  coincided  in  this 
— that  he  was  more  powerful  in  the  parlor  than  in  the  pulpit. 
He  was  more  at  ease  in  the  former.  He  had  his  pipe  in  his 
mouth,  his  tea-pot  beside  him,  eager  ears  listening  to  catch 
his  every  whisper — bright  eyes  raining  influence  on  him ;  and, 
under  these  varied  excitements,  he  was  sure  to  shine.  His 
spirits  rose,  his  wit  flashed,  his  keen  and  pointed  sentences 
thickened,  and  his  auditors  began  to  imagine  him  a  Baptist 
Burke,  or  a  Johnson  Redivivus,  and  to  wish  that  Boswell 
were  to  undergo  a  resurrection  too.  In  these  evening  parties 
he  appeared,  we  suspect,  to  greater  advantage  than  in  the 
mornings,  when  ministers  from  all  quarters  called  to  see  the 
lion  of  Leicester,  and  tried  to  tempt  him  to  roar  by  such 
questions  as,  "  Whether  do  you  think,  Mr.  Hall,  Cicero  or 
Demosthenes  the  greater  orator  ?  Was  Burke  the  author  of 
'  Junius  ?'  Whether  is  Bentham  or  Wilberforce  the  leading 
spirit  of  the  age?"  &c.,  &c.  How  Hall  kept  his  gravity  or 
his  temper,  under  such  a  fire  of  queries,  not  to  speak  of  the 
smoke  of  the  half  putrid  incense  amid  which  it  came  forth,  we 


ROBERT  HALL.  79 


eannot  tell.  He  was,  however,  although  a  vehement  and  irri- 
table, a  very  polite  mau ;  and,  like  Dr.  Johnson,  he  "  loved 
to  fold  his  legs,  and  have  his  talk  out."  Many  of  his  visitors, 
too,  were  really  distinguished  men,  and  were  sure,  when  they 
returned  home,  to  circulate  his  repartees,  and  spread  abroad 
his  fame.  Hence,  even  in  the  forenoons,  he  sometimes  said 
brilliant  things,  many  of  which  have  been  diligently  collected 
by  the  late  excellent  Dr.  Balmer  and  others,  and  are  to  be 
found  in  his  memoirs. 

Judging  by  these  specimens,  our  impression  of  his  conver- 
sational powers  is  distinct  and  decided.  His  talk  was  always 
rapid,  ready,  clear,  and  pointed — often  brilliant,  not  unfre- 
quently  wild  and  daring.  He  said  more  good  and  memorable 
things  in  the  course  of  an  evening  than  perhaps  any  talker  of 
his  day.  To  the  power  of  his  talk  it  contributed  that  his 
state  of  body  required  constant  stimulus.  Owing  to  a  pain  in 
his  spine,  he  was  obliged  to  swallow  daily  great  quantities  of 
ether  and  laudanum,  not  to  speak  of  his  favorite  potion,  tea, 
This  had  the  effect  of  keeping  him  strung  up  always  to  the 
highest  pitch  ;  and,  while  never  intoxicated,  he  was  everlast- 
ingly excited.  Had  he  been  a  feebler  man  in  body  and  mind, 
the  regimen  would  have  totally  unnerved  him.  As  it  was,  it 
added  greatly  to  the  natural  brilliance  of  his  conversational 
powers,  although  sometimes  it  appears  to  have  irritated  his 
temper,  and  to  have  provoked  ebullitions  of  passion  and  hasty, 
unguarded  statement.  It  was  in  such  moods  that  he  used  to 
abuse  Coleridge,  Wordsworth,  Southey,  Pollok,  and  Edward 
Irving.  He  often,  too,  talked  for  effect;  and  his  judgments 
were  sometimes  exceedingly  capricious  and  self-contradictory. 
Society  was  essential  to  him.  It  relieved  that  "  permanent 
shade  of  gloom"  which  the  acute  eye  of  Foster  saw  lying  on 
his  soul.  He  rushed  to  it  as  into  his  native  air ;  and,  once 
there,  he  sometimes  talked  for  victory  and  display,  and  often 
on  subjects  with  which  he  was  very  imperfectly  acquainted. 
We  cannot  wonder  that,  when  he  met  on  one  occasion  with 
Coleridge,  they  did  not  take  to  each -other.  Both  had  been 
accustomed  to  lead  in  conversation ;  and,  like  two  suns  in  one 
eky,  they  began  to  "  fight  in  their  courses,"  and  made  the  at- 
mosphere too  hot  to  hold  them.  Coleridge,  although  not  so 
ready,  rapid,  and  sharp,  was  far  profounder,  wider,  and  more 


80  A    CONSTELLATION    OF    SACRED    AUTHORS, 


suggestive  in  his  conversation.  Hall's  talk,  like  his  style, 
consisted  of  rather  short,  pointed,  and  balanced  periods. — 
Coleridge  talked,  as  he  wrote,  in  long,  linked,  melodious,  and 
flowing,  but  somewhat  rambling  and  obscure  paragraphs.  The 
one  talked  ;  the  other  lectured.  The  one  was  a  lively,  spark- 
ling stream ;  the  other  a  great,  slow,  broad,  and  lipful  river. 

A  gentleman  in  Bradford  described  to  us  a  day  he  once 
spent  there  with  Hall.  It  was  a  day  of  much  enjoyment  and 
excitement.  At  the  close  of  it  Hall  felt  exceedingly  exhaust- 
ed ;  and,  ere  retiring  to  rest,  asked  the  landlady  for  a  wine- 
glass half-full  of  brandy.  "  Now,"  he  says,  "  I  am  about  to 
take  as  much  laudanum  as  would  kill  all  this  company ;  for  if 
I  don't,  I  won't  sleep  one  moment."  He  filled  the  glass  with 
strong  laudanum  j  went  to  bed;  enjoyed  a  refreshing  rest; 
and  came  down  to  breakfast  the  next  morning  "  the  most  ma- 
jestic-looking man  "  our  informant  ever  saw ;  his  brow  calm 
and  grand ;  his  eye  bright ;  his  air  serene ;  and  his  step  and 
port  like  those  of  a  superior  being,  condescending  to  touch 
this  gross  planet.  He  described  his  conversation  as  worthy 
of  his  presence — the  richest  and  most  sparkling  essence  he 
ever  imbibed  withal.  Yet  his  face  was  far  from  being  a  hand- 
some one.  Indeed,  it  reminded  some  people  of  an  exaggerated 
frog's.  But  the  amplitude  of  his  forehead,  the  brilliance  of 
his  eye,  and  the  strength  and  breadth  of  his  chest,  marked 
him  out  always  from  the  roll  of  common  men,  and  added 
greatly  to  the  momentum  both  of  his  conversation  and  his 
preaching. 

His  preaching  has  been  frequently  described,  but  generally 
by  those  who  heard  him  in  the  decline  of  his  powers.  It  came 
to  a  climax  in  Cambridge,  and  was  never  so  powerful  after  his 
derangement.  To  have  heard  him  in  Cambridge,  must  have 
been  a  treat  almost  unrivalled  in  the  history  of  pulpit-oratory. 
In  the  prime  of  youth  and  youthful  strength,  "  hope  still  ris- 
ing before  him,  like  a  fiery  column,  the  dark  side  not  yet 
turned  /"  his  fancy  exuberant ;  his  language  less  select,  per- 
haps, but  more  energetic  and  abundant  than  in  later  days ; 
full  of  faith  without  fanaticism,  and  of  ardor  without  excess 
of  enthusiasm;  with  an  eye  like  a  coal  of  fire;  a  figure, 
strong,  erect,  and  not  yet  encumbered  with  corpulence ;  a 
voice  not  loud,  but  sweet,  and  which  ever  and  anon  "  trem- 


ROBERT    HALL.  81 


bled "  below  his  glorious  sentences  and  images,  and  an  utter- 
ance rapid  as  a  mountain  torrent — did  this  young  apostle 
stand  up,  and,  to  an  audience  as  refined  and  intellectual  as 
could  then  be  assembled  in  England,  "  preach  Christ  and  him 
crucified."  Sentence  followed  sentence,  each  more  brilliant 
than  its  forerunner,  like  Venus  succeeding  Jupiter  in  the  sky, 
and  Luna  drowning  Venus  ;  shiver  after  shiver  of  delight  fol- 
lowed each  other  through  the  souls  of  the  hearers,  till  they 
wondered  "  whereunto  this  thing  should  grow,"  and  whether 
they  were  in  the  body  or  out  of  the  body  they  could  hardly 
tell.  To  use  the  fine  words  of  John  Scott,  "  he  unveiled  the 
mighty  foundations  of  the  Rock  of  Ages,  and  made  their 
hearts  vibrate  with  a  strange  joy,  which  they  shall  recognize 
in  loftier  stages  of  their  existence."  What  a  pity  that,  with 
the  exception  of  his  sermon  on  Modern  Infidelity,  all  these 
Cambridge  discourses  have  irrecoverably  perished. 

This,  however,  like  Chalmers's  similar  splendid  career  in  the 
Tron  Church,  Glasgow,  could  not  last  for  ever.  Hall  became 
over-excited,  perhaps  over-elated,  and  his  majestic  mind  depart- 
ed from  men  for  a  season.  When  he  "came  back  to  us,"  much 
of  his  power  and  eloquence  was  gone.  His  joy  of  being,  too, 
was  lessened.  He  became  a  sadder  and  a  wiser  man.  He  no 
longer  rushed  exulting  to  the  pulpit,  as  the  horse  to  the  bat- 
tle. He  "  spake  trembiiug  in  Israel."  He  had,  in  his  de- 
rangement, got  a  glimpse  of  the  dark  mysteries  of  existence, 
and  was  humbled  in  the  dust  under  the  recollection  of  it.  He 
had  met,  too,  with  some  bitter  disappointments.  His  love  to 
a  most  accomplished  and  beautiful  woman  was  not  returned. 
Fierce  spasms  of  agony  ran  ever  and  anon  through  his  body. 
The  terrible  disease  of  madness  continued  to  hang  over  him 
all  his  life  long,  like  the  sword  of  Damocles,  by  a  single  hair. 
All  this  contributed  to  soften  and  also  somewhat  to  weaken 
his  spirit.  His  preaching  became  the  mild  sunset  of  what  it 
had  been.  The  power,  richness,  and  fervor  of  his  ancient 
style  were  for  ever  gone. 

We  have  heard  his  later  mode  of  preaching  often  described 
by  eye-witnesses.  He  began  in  a  low  tone  of  voice;  as  he 
proceeded  his  voice  rose  and  his  rapidity  increased ;  the  two 
first  thirds  of  his  sermon  consisted  of  statement  or  argument ; 
when  he  neared  the  close,  he  commenced  a  strain  of  appeal 


82  A    CONSTELLATION    OF    SACRED    AUTHORS. 


and  then,  and  not  till  then,  was  there  any  eloquence ;  then  his 
stature  erected  itself,  his  voice  swelled  to  its  utmost  compass, 
his  rapidity  became  prodigious,  and  his  practical  questions — 
poured  out  in  thick  succession — seemed  to  sound  the  very 
souls  of  his  audience.  Next  to  the  impressivencss  of  the 
conclusion,  what  struck  a  stranger  most  was  the  exquisite 
beauty  and  balance  of  his  sentences;  every  one  of  which 
seemed  quite  worthy  of,  and  ready  for,  the  press.  Sometimes, 
indeed,  he  was  the  tamest  and  most  commonplace  of  preach- 
ers, and  men  left  the  church  wonderiug  if  this  were  actually 
the  illustrious  man. 

His  Sermons,  in  their  printed  form,  next  demand  our  con- 
sideration. Their  merits,  we  think,  have  been  somewhat  exag- 
gerated hitherto,  and  are  likely,  in  the  coming  age,  to  be  rated 
too  low.  It  cannot  be  fairly  maintained  that  they  exhibit  a 
great  native  original  mind  like  Foster's,  or  that  they  are  full, 
as  a  whole,  of  rich  suggestive  thought.  The  thinking  in  them 
is  never  mere  commonplace ;  but  it  never  rises  into  rare  and 
creative  originality.  In  general,  he  aims  only  at  the  elegant 
and  the  beautiful,  and  is  seldom  sublime.  He  is  not  the 
Moses,  or  the  Milton,  or  the  Young — only  the  Pope,  of 
preachers.  Like  Pope,  his  forte  is  refined  sense,  expressed  in 
exquisite  language.  In  conversation,  he  often  ventured  on 
daring  nights,  but  seldom  in  his  writings.,,  While  reading 
them,  so  cool  is  the  strain  of  thought — so  measured  the  wri- 
ting— so  perfect  the  self-command — so  harmoniously  do  the 
various  faculties  of  the  writer  work  together — that  you  are 
tempted  to  ask,  How  could  the  author  of  this  ever  have  been 
mad? 

We  are  far  from  wishing,  by  such  remarks,  to  derogate 
from  the  merit  of  these  remarkable  compositions.  For,  if 
not  crowded  with  thought  or  copious  in  imagination,  and  if 
somewhat  stiff,  stately,  and  monotonous  in  style,  they  are  at 
once  very  masculine  in  thinking,  and  very  elegant  in  language. 
If  he  seldom  reaches  the  sublime,  he  never  condescends  to  the 
pretty,  or  even  the  neat.  He  is  always  graceful,  if  not  often 
grand.  A  certain  sober  dignity  distinguishes  all  his  march, 
and  now  and  then  he  trembles  into  touches  of  pathos  or  ele- 
vated sentiment,  which  are  as  felicitous  as  they  are  delicate. 
Some  of  the  fragments  he  has  left  behind  him  discover,  we 


ROBERT    HALL.  83 


think,  more  of  the  strong,  bold  conception,  and  the  ms  vivida 
of  genius,  than  his  more  polished  and  elaborate  productions. 
Such  are  his  two  Sermons  on  the  Divine  Concealment.  But 
in  all  his  works  you  see  a  mind  which  had  ventured  too  far 
and  had  overstrained  its  energies  in  early  manhood,  and  which 
had  come  back  to  cower  timidly  in  its  native  nest. 

It  were  wasting  time  to  dwell  on  sermons  so  well-known  as 
those  of  Hall.  We  prefer  that  on  the  death  of  Dr.  Ryland, 
as  more  characteristic  of  his  distinguishing  qualities  of  digni- 
fied sentiment,  graceful  pathos,  and  calm,  majestic  eloquence. 
In  his  "  Infidelity,"  and  "  War,"  and  the  "  Present  Crisis," 
he  grapples  with  subjects  unsuited,  on  the  whole,  to  his  genius, 
and  becomes  almost  necessarily  an  imitator,  particularly  of 
Burke — whose  mind  possessed  all  those  qualities  of  origina- 
tion, power  over  the  terrible,  and  boundless  fertility  in  which 
Hall's  was  deficient.  But  in  Ryland  you  have  himself ;  ami 
we  fearlessly  pronounce  that  sermon  the  most  classical  and 
beautiful  strain  of  pulpit  eloquence  in  the  English  language. 

Hall  as  a  thinker  never  had  much  power  over  the  age,  and 
that  seems  entirely  departed.  Even  as  a  writer  he  is  not  now 
so  much  admired.  The  age  is  getting  tired  of  measured  peri- 
ods, and  is  preferring  a  more  conversational  and  varied  style. 
He  has  founded  no  school,  and  left  few  stings  in  the  hearts  of 
his  hearers.  Few  have  learned  much  from  him.  Yet  as 
specimens  of  pure  English,  expressing  evangelical  truth  in 
musical  cadence,  his  sermons  and  essays  have  their  own  place, 
and  it  is  a  high  one,  among  the  classical  writings  of  the  age. 

Hall,  as  we  have  intimated,  had  a  lofty  mein,  and  was 
thought  by  many,  particularly  in  a  first  interview,  rather  arro- 
gant and  overbearing.  But  this  was  only  the  hard  outside 
shell  of  his  manner;  beneath  there  were  profound  humility, 
warm  affections,  and  childlike  piety.  He  said  that  he  "  en- 
joyed everything."  But  this  capacity  of  keen  enjoyment  was, 
as  often  in  other  cases,  linked  to  a  sensitiveness  and  morbid 
acuteness  of  feeling,  which  made  him  at  times  very  melancholy. 
He  was,  like  all  thinkers,  greatly  perplexed  by  the  mysteries 
of  existence,  and  grieved  at  the  spectacles  of  sin  and  misery 
in  this  dark  valley  of  tears.  He  was  like  an  angel,  who  had 
lost  his  way  from  heaven,  and  his  wings  with  it,  and  who  was 
looking  perpetually  upwards  with  a  sigh,  and  longing  to  re- 


84  A    CONSTELLATION    OF    SACRED    AUTHORS. 


turn  We  heard,  some  time  ago,  one  striking  story  about 
him.  He  had  been  seized  with  that  dire  calamity,  which  had 
once  before  laid  him  aside  from  public  duty,  and  had  been 
quietly  removed  to  a  country-house.  By  some  accident  his 
door  had  been  left  unlocked,  and  Hall  rushed  out  from  bed 
into  the  open  air.  It  was  winter,  and  there  was  thick  snow 
on  the  ground.  He  stumbled  amid  the  snow — and  the  sudden 
shock  on  his  half-naked  body  restored  him  to  consciousness. 
He  knelt  down  in  the  snow,  and,  looking  up  to  heaven,  ex- 
claimed, "  Lord,  what  is  man  ?"  To  the  constant  fear  of  this 
malady,  and  to  deep  and  melancholy  thoughts  on  man  and 
man's  destiny,  was  added  what  Foster  calls  an  "  apparatus  of 
torture  "  within  him — a  sharp  calculus  in  his  spine — a  thorn 
in  the  flesh,  or  rather  in  the  bone.  Yet  against  all  this  he 
manfully  struggled,  and  his  death  at  last  might  be  called  a 
victory.  It  took  him  away  from  the  perplexities  of  this  dim 
dawn  of  being,  where  the  very  light  is  as  darkness — from 
almost  perpetual  pain,  and  from  the  shadow  of  the  grimmest 
Fear  that  can  hang  over  humanity — and  removed  him  to  those 
regions  mild,  of  calm  and  serene  air,  of  which  he  loved  to  dis- 
course, where  no  cloud  stains  the  eternal  azure  of  the  holy 
soul — where  doubt  is  as  impossible  as  disbelief  or  darkness — 
and  where  God  in  all  the  grandeur  of  his  immensity,  but  in 
all  the  softness  of  his  love,  is  for  ever  unveiled.  There  his 
friends  Foster  and  Chalmers  have  since  joined  him ;  and  it  is 
impossible  not  to  form  delightful  conjectures  as  to  their  meet- 
ing each  other,  and  holding  sweet  and  solemn  fellowship  in 
that  blessed  region.  "  Shall  we  know  each  other  in  heaven  ?" 
is  a  question  often  asked.  And  yet  why  should  it  be  doubted 
for  a  moment  ?  Do  the  brutes  know  each  other  on  earth,  and 
shall  not  the  saints  in  heaven  ?  Yes !  that  notion  of  a  re- 
union which  inspired  the  soul  of  Cicero,  which  made  poor 
Burns  exult  in  the  prospect  of  his  meeting  with  his  dear  lost 
Highland  Mary,  and  which  Hall,  in  the  close  of  his  sermon 
on  Ryland,  has  covered  with  the  mild  glory  of  his  immortal 
eloquence,  is  no  dream  or  delusion.  It  is  one  of  the  "  true 
sayings  of  God,"  and  there  is  none  more  cheering  to  the  soul 
of  the  struggler  here  below.  These  three  master  spirits  have 
met,  and  what  a  meeting  it  has  been  !  The  spirit  of  Foster 
has  lost  that  sable  garment  which  suspicious  conjecture,  pry- 


DR.    CHALMERS.  85 


ing  curiosity,  and  gloomy  temperament  had  woven  for  it  here, 
and  his  "  raiment  doth  shine  as  the  light."  Chalmers  has 
recovered  from  the  wear  and  tear  of  that  long  battle,  and  life 
of  tempestuous  action  which  was  his  lot  on  earth.  And  Hall's 
thorn  rankles  no  longer  in  his  side,  and  all  his  fears  and  fore- 
bodings have  passed  away.  The  long  day  of  eternity  is  before 
them  all,  and  words  fail  us,  as  we  think  of  the  joy  with  which 
they  anticipate  its  unbounded  pleasures,  and  prepare  for  its 
unwearying  occupations.  They  are  above  the  clouds  that  en- 
compassed them  once,  and  they  hear  the  thunders  that  once 
terrified  or  scathed  them,  muttering  harmlessly  far,  far  below. 
Wondrous  their  insight,  deep  their  joy,  sweet  their  reminis- 
cences, ravishing  their  prospects.  But  their  hearts  are  even 
humbler  than  when  they  were  on  earth ;  they  never  weary  of 
saying,  "  Not  unto  us,  not  unto  us ;"  and  the  song  never  dies 
away  on  their  lips,  any  more  than  on  those  of  the  meanest  and 
humblest  of  the  saved,  "  Unto  him  that  loved  us  and  washed 
us  from  our  sins  in  his  own  blood,  be  glory  and  honor,  domin- 
ion and  power,  for  ever  and  ever.  Amen." 


NO.  V.-DR.  CHALMERS. 

THERE  are  some  subjects  which  seem  absolutely  inexhausti- 
ble. They  may  be  compared  to  the  alphabet,  which,  after 
5000  years,  is  capable  still  of  new  and  infinite  combinations — 
or  to  the  sun,  whose  light  is  as  fresh  to-day  as  it  was  a  million 
of  ages  ago — or  to  space,  which  has  opened  her  hospitable 
bosom  to  myriads  of  worlds,  and  has  ample  room  for  myriads 
on  myriads  more.  Such  a  fresh  ever-welling  theme  is  Chal- 
mers, and  will  remain  so  for  centuries  to  come  ;  and  we  make 
no  apology  at  all  for  bidding  his  mighty  shade  sit  once  more 
for  its  portrait,  from  no  prejudiced  or  unloving  hand.  And 
here  we  propose  first  to  give  our  own  reminiscences  of  him ; 
then  to  speak  of  the  characteristics  of  his  genius,  eloquence, 
and  purpose ;  and,  in  fine,  to  examine  at  some  length  his  most 
popular  work,  his  "Astronomical  Discourses." 


86  A    CONSTELLATION    OF    SACRED    AUTHORS. 


We  first  heard  Dr.  Chalmers  preach  on  Sabbath,  the  9th  of 
October,  1831,  when  introducing  the  Rev.  Mr.  Martin,  of  St. 
George's,  Edinburgh,  to  his  flock.  Through  the  kindness  of  a 
friend  who  sat  in  the  church,  we  obtained,  although  with  diffi- 
culty, a  seat  in  the  very  front  of  the  gallery,  near  a  pew  in 
which,  on  Sabbath,  the  8th  of  February,  1846,  we  enjoyed  a 
comfortable  nap  under  a  sermon  from  the  Rev.  Dr.  Brunton  ! 
There  was  no  napping  THAT  forenoon.  We  went,  we  remem- 
ber, with  excited  but  uncertain  expectations.  We  had  read 
Chalmers's  "Astronomical  Discourses,"  and  had  learned  to 
admire  them,  but  had  no  clear  or  decided  view  of  their  author, 
and  were  not  without  certain  Dissenting  prejudices  against 
him.  Being  near-sighted,  and  the  morning  being  rather  dim, 
we  could  not  catch  a  distinct  glimpse  of  his  features.  We 
saw  only  a  dark  large  mass  of  man  bustling  up  the  pulpit 
stairs,  as  if  in  some  dread  and  desperate  haste.  We  heard 
next  a  hoarse  voice,  first  giving  out  the  psalm  in  a  tone  of 
rapid  familiar  energy,  and  after  it  was  sung,  and  prayer  was 
over,  announcing  for  text,  "  He  that  is  unjust  let  him  be  un- 
just still  (stull,  he  pronounced  it),  he  that  is  filthy  (fultky,  he 
called  it),  let  him  be  filthy  still,  and  he  that  is  righteous,  let 
him  be  righteous  still,  and  he  that  is  holy,  let  him  be  holy 
stull.'1'1  And  then,  like  an  eagle  leaving  the  mountain  cliff,  he 
launched  out  at  once  upon  his  subject,  and  soared  on  without 
any  diminution  of  energy  or  flutter  of  wing  for  an  hour  and 
more.  The  discourse  is  published,  and  most  of  our  readers 
have  probably  read  it.  It  had  two  or  three  magnificent  pas- 
sages, which  made  the  audience  for  a  season  one  soul.  A 
burst  especially  we  remember,  in  reference  to  the  materialism 
of  heaven — "  There  may  be  palms  of  triumph,  I  do  not  know — 
there  may  be  floods  of  melody,"  and  then  he  proceeded  to  show 
that  heaven  was  more  a  state  than  a  place.  On  the  whole, 
however,  we  were  disappointed,  as  indeed  we  were,  at  the  first 
blush,  with  all  the  Edinburgh  notabilities.  Strange  as  it  may 
seem,  neither  Wilson,  nor  Chalmers,  nor  Professor  Leslie,  nor 
Dr.  Gordon,  nor  Jeffrey,  produced,  AT  FIRST,  on  us  a  tithe  of 
the  impression  which  many  country  ministers,  whose  names 
are  extant  only  in  the  Lamb's  Book  of  Life,  had  easily  and 
ineffaceably  left.  We  learned,  indeed,  afterwards  to  admire 
Wilson  and  Chalmers  to  the  very  depths  of  our  hearts ;  and 


DR.    CHALMERS.  8T 

John  Bruce,  whom  at  first,  too,  we  rather  disrelished,  became 
ultimately  an  idol.  But,  on  the  whole,  our  first  feeling,  in 
reference  to  the  Edinburgh  celebrities,  lay  and  cleric,  was  that 
of  intense  disappointment. 

This  feeling  would  be  forgiven  by  the  men  themselves,  or 
even  by  the  warmest  of  their  admirers,  if  they  could  have 
seen  us.  a  year  or  two  afterwards,  listening  to  Wilson  on  the 
immortality  of  the  soul,  to  John  Bruce  on  the  text,  "  The 
sting  of  death  is  sin,"  or  to  Thomas  Chalmers  repeating,  at 
the  opening  of  the  General  Assembly  of  1833,  the  sermon  on 
"  He  that  is  fulthy  let  him  be  fulthy  still."  That  morning 
opened  in  all  the  splendor"  of  May — and  the  Assembly  which 
met  knew  that  the  Reform  Bill  had  passed  since  its  last  ses- 
sion, and  that  it  must  become  perforce  a  reforming  Assembly 
too.  Chalmers  rose  to  the  greatness  of  the  occasion.  After 
delivering,  with  greatly  increased  energy,  all  the  original  dis- 
course, he  added  a  new  peroration  of  prodigious  power,  draw 
ing  the  attention  of  his  "  Fathers  and  Brethren  "  to  the  cir- 
cumstances in  which  they  were  placed,  and  to  the  duties  to 
which  they  were  called.  It  told  like  a  thunderbolt.  Even 
the  gallery,  which  was  half  empty,  was  absolutely  electrified ; 
and  the  divinity  students  and  young  ladies  who  had  been  per- 
severingly  ogling  each  other  there,  were  compelled  to  turn 
their  eyes  and  hearts  away  towards  the  glowing  countenance 
and  heaving  form  of  the  "  old  man  eloquent." 

We  occasionally  heard  him,  too,  in  his  class-room,  always 
with  great  interest  and  often  with  vivid  delight.  Our  tone  of 
enthusiasm,  however,  was  somewhat  restrained,  from  our  fre- 
quent intercourse  with  his  students,  who  in  general  over-rated 
him,  and  were  sometimes  disposed  to  cry  out,  "  It  is  the  voice 
of  a  god,  not  of  a  man,"  and  whose  imitations  of  his  style  and 
manner  were  frequent,  and  grotesquely  unsuccessful.  We 
never  but  once  heard  him  there  rise  to  his  highest  pitch.  It 
was  at  the  close  of  a  lecture  illustrating  the  character  and 
claims  of  Christianity ;  when,  grasping,  as  it  were,  all  around 
him  (like  an  assaulted  man  for  a  sword),  in  search  of  a  yet 
stronger  proof  of  his  point,  he  lifted  up  his  own  "  Astronomi- 
cal Discourses,"  and  read  (with  a  brow  flushing  like  a  crystal 
goblet  newly  filled  with  wine — an  eye  glaring  with  sudden 
excitation — a  voice  "  pealing  harsh  thunder  " — and  a  motion 


88  A    CONSTELLATION    OF    SACRED    AUTHORS. 


as  if  some  shirt  of  Nessus  had  just  fallen  upon  his  shoulders — 
amid  dead  silence)  the  following  passage  : — 

"  Let  the  priests  of  another  faith  ply  their  prudential  expe- 
dients, and  look  so  wise  and  so  wary  in  the  execution  of  them  ; 
but  Christianity  stands  in  a  higher  and  firmer  attitude.  The 
defensive  armor  of  a  shrinking  or  timid  policy  does  not  suit 
her.  Hers  is  the  naked  majesty  of  truth ;  and  with  all  the 
grandeur  of  age,  but  with  none  of  its  infirmities,  has  she  come 
down  to  us,  and  gathered  new  strength  from  the  battles  she 
has  won  in  the  many  controversies  of  many  generations.  With 
such  a  religion  as  this  there  is  nothing  to  hide.  All  should 
be  above-boards ;  and  the  broadest  light  of  day  should  be 
made  fully  and  freely  to  circulate  through  all  her  secrecies. 
But  secrets  she  has  none.  To  her  belong  the  frankness  and 
simplicity  of  conscious  greatness." 

This  is  eloquent  writing ;  but  where  the  fiery  edge  of  Bardic 
power  which  seemed  to  surround  it  as  he  spoke?  That  is 
gone ;  and  the  number  must  fast  lessen  of  those  who  now  can 
remember  those  strange  accompaniments  of  Chalmers's  elo> 
quence — the  uplifted,  half-extracted  eye — the  large  flushed 
forehead — the  pallor  of  the  cheek  contrasting  with  it — the 
eager  lips — the  mortal  passion  struggling  within  the  heaving 
breast — the  furious  motions  of  the  short,  fin-like  arms,  and 
the  tones  of  the  voice,  which  seemed  sometimes  to  be  grinding 
their  way  down  into  your  ear  and  soul. 

We  heard  Chalmers  once,  and  only  once,  again.  It  was  in 
Dundee,  in  the  spring  of  1839.  The  audience  was  crowded, 
although  it  was  a  week-day,  and  only  afternoon.  The  object 
of  the  discourse  was  to  defend  church  extension.  For  an 
hour  or  so  the  lecturer  was  chiefly  employed  in  statistical  de- 
tails. He  lifted  up,  and  read  occasional  extracts  from  certain 
dingy,  and  as  he  called  them,  "  delightful  ill-spelled  letters," 
from  working  men  in  support  of  the  object.  Toward  the  end 
he  became  more  animated,  and  closed  a  brilliant  burst  of  ten 
minutes'  duration  by  quoting  the  lines  of  Burns : — 

"  From  scenes  like  these  old  Scotia's  grandeur  springs; 

These  make  her  loved  at  home,  revered  abroad. 
Princes  and  lords  are  but  the  breath  of  kin.qs  ; 
An  honest  man's  the  noblest  work  of  God." 


DR.    CHALMERS.  39 


The  effect  was  overwhelming.  We  happened,  in  leaving  the 
church,  to  pass  near  the  orator,  and  were  greatly  struck  with 
the  rapt  look  of  his  face — 

"  The  wind  was  down,  but  still  the  sea  ran  high." 

A  certain  pallid  gleam  had  succeeded  the  flushed  ardor  of  his 
appearance  in  the  pulpit.  It  was  the  last  time  we  were  ever 
to  gaze  on  the  strange,  coarse,  but  most  powerful  and  meaning 
countenance  of  Dr.  Chalmers. 

And  yet  when,  years  later,  we  saw  Duncan's  picture  of  him, 
he  seemed  still  alive  before  us.  The  leonine  massiveness  of 
the  head,  body,  and  brow — the  majestic  repose  of  the  atti- 
tude— the  eye  withdrawn  upwards  into  a  deep  happy  dream — 
the  air  of  simple  homely  grandeur  about  the  whole  person 
and  bearing — were  all  those  of  Chalmers,  and  combined  to 
prove  him  next,  perhaps,  to  Wilson,  the  Genius  of  Scotland — 
the  hirsute  Forest-God  of  a  rugged  but  true-hearted  land. 

It  was  this  air  of  unshorn  power  which  marked  him  out 
from  all  his  ecclesiastical  contemporaries,  and  contributed  in 
some  measure  to  his  popularity.  Scotland — "  the  land  of 
mountain  and  of  flood" — loves  that  her  idols  shall  be  large 
and  shaggy.  Think  of  her  worship  of  the  rough  John  Knox 
— of  the  stalwart  sons  of  the  Covenant — of  Burns  and  Wilson, 
the  two  tameless  spirits  ! — and  of  her  own  homely,  all-reflect- 
ing, ami  simple  Sir  Walter  Scott.  What  cares  she,  in  com- 
parison with  these,  for  her  polished  Robertsons  and  Jeffreys  ? 

It  is  well  remarked  by  Jeffreys,  in  vindicating  the  Scottish 
language  from  the  charge  of  vulgarity,  that  it  is  not  the  lan- 
guage of  a  province,  like  Yorkshire,  but  of  an  ancient  and  in- 
dependent kingdom.  So  Chalmers's  peculiarities  and  rough- 
ness of  speech  were  those  of  the  ancient  "  kingdom  of  Fife;" 
and  in  his  "  whuches,"  and  his  "  fulthies,"  and  his  bad  quan- 
tities, after  the  first  blush  there  was  found  a  strange  antique 
charm — they  were  of  the  earth,  earthy,  and  suited  the  stout 
aboriginal  character  of  the  man.  His  roughness  was  but  the 
rough  grating  of  the  wheels  of  the  huge  and  wealthy  wain,  as 
it  moved  homewards  over  a  rocky  road,  amid  the  autumn  twi- 
light, and  told  of  rude  plenty  and  of  massive  power. 

The  effects  of  his  eloquence  have  been  often  described. — 
Many  orators  have  produced  more  cheers,  and  shone  more  in 


90  A    CONSTELLATION    OF    SACRED    AUTHORS. 


brilliant  individual  points  :  Chalmers's  power  lay  in  pressing 
on  his  whole  audience  before  him,  through  the  sheer  momen- 
tum of  genius  and  enthusiasm.  He  treated  his  hearers  as  con- 
stituting "  one  mind,"  and  was  himself  "  one  strength,"  urging 
it,  like  a  vast  stone,  upwards.  In  this  he  very  seldom  failed. 
He  might  not  always  convince  the  understandings — he  often 
offended  the  tastes  ;  but,  unlike  Sisyphus,  he  pushed  his  stone 
to  the  summit — he  secured  at  least  a  temporary  triumph. 

This  he  gained  greatly  from  the  intensity  of  his  views,  as 
well  as  from  the  earnestness  of  his  temperament,  and  the 
splendor  of  his  genius.  He  had  strong,  clear,  angular,  although 
often  one-sided  and  mistaken,  notions  on  the  subjects  he 
touched ;  and  these,  by  incessant  reiteration,  by  endless  turn- 
ing round,  by  dint  of  dauntless  furrowing,  he  succeeded  in 
ploughing  into  the  minds  of  his  hearers.  Or  it  seemed  a  pro- 
cess of  stamping  •  "  I  must  press  such  and  such  a  truth  on 
them,  whether  they  hear  or  forbear.  I  shall  stamp  on  till  it 
is  fixed  undeniably  and  for  ever  upon  their  minds."  Add  to 
this  the  unconsciousness  of  himself.  He  never  seemed^  at 
least,  to  be  thinking  about  himself,  nor  very  much  of  his  hear- 
ers. He  was  occupied  entirely  with  those  "  big  bulking"  ideas 
of  which  he  was  the  mere  organ,  and  he  taught  his  audience  to 
think  of  them  principally  too.  How  grand  it  was  to  witness 
a  strong  and  gifted  man  transfigured  into  the  mere  medium  of 
an  idea  ! — his  whole  body  so  filled  with  its  light  that  you 
seemed  to  see  it  shining  through  him,  as  through  a  transparent 
vase ! 

His  imagination  was  a  quality  in  him  of  which  much  non- 
sense used  to  be  said.  It  was  now  made  his  only  faculty,  and 
now  it  was  described  as  of  the  Shakspeare  or  Jeremy  Taylor 
order.  In  fact,  it  was  not  by  any  means  even  his  highest 
power.  Strong,  broad,  Baconian  logic  was  his  leading  faculty  ; 
and  he  had,  besides,  a  boundless  command  of  a  certain  order 
of  language,  as  well  as  all  the  burning  sympathies  and  ener- 
gies of  the  orator.  Taking  him  all  in  all,  he  was  unquestion- 
ably a  man  of  lofty  genius  ;  but  it  very  seldom  assumed  the 
truly  poetic  form,  and  was  rather  warm  than  rich.  Power  of 
illustration  he  possessed  in  plenty ;  but  in  curiosa  felicitas, 
short,  compact,  hurrying  strokes  as  of  lightning,  and  that  fine 
sudden  imagery  in  which  strong  and  beautiful  thought  so  na- 


DR.    CHALMERS.  91 


turally  incarnates  itself,  he  was  rather  deficient.  He  was, 
consequently,  one  of  our  least  terse  and  quotable  authors. — 
Few  sentences,  collecting  in  themselves  the  results  of  long 
trains  of  thinking,  in  a  new  and  sparkling  form — like  "  apples 
of  gold  in  a  network  of  silver" — are  to  be  found  in  his  wri- 
tings. Nor  do  they  abound  in  bare,  strong  aphorisms.  Let 
those  who  would  see  his  deficiency  in  this  respect  compare  him, 
not  with  the  Jeremy  Taylors,  Barrows,  and  Donnes,  merely, 
but  with  the  Burkes,  Hazlitts,  and  Goleridges  of  a  later  day, 
and  they  will  understand  our  meaning.  His  writings  remind 
you  rather  of  the  sublime  diffusiveness  of  a  Paul,  than  of  the 
deep,  solitary,  and  splendid  dicta  of  the  great  Preacher-King 
of  ancient  Israel. 

A  classic  author  he  is  not,  and  never  can  become.  From 
this  destiny,  his  Scotticisms,  vulgarities,  and  new  combina- 
tions of  sounds  and  words,  do  not  necessarily  exclude  him ; 
but  his  merits  (as  a  MERE  LITERARY  man)  do  not  counter- 
balance his  defects.  The  power  of  the  works,  in  fact,  was  not 
equal  to  the  power  of  the  man.  He  always,  indeed,  threw  his 
heart,  but  not  always  his  artistic  consciousness,  into  what  he 
wrote.  Hence  he  is  generally  "  rude  in  speech,  although  not 
in  knowledge."  His  utterance  is  never  confused,  but  is  often 
hampered,  as  of  one  speaking  in  a  foreign  tongue.  This  some- 
times adds  to  the  effect  of  his  written  composition — it  often 
added  amazingly  to  the  force  of  those  extempore  harangues  he 
was  in  the  habit  of  uttering,  amid  the  intervals  of  his  lectures, 
to  his  students.  Those  stammerings,  strugglings,  repetitions, 
risings  from  and  sittings  down  into  his  chair — often,  however, 
coming  to  some  fiery  burst,  or  culminating  in  some  rapid  and 
victorious  climax — reminded  you  of  Wordsworth's  lines  : — 

"  So  have  I,  not  unmoved  in  mind, 
Seen  birds  of  tempest-loving  kind, 
Thus  beating  up  against  the  wind." 

You  liked  to  see  this  strong-winged  bird  of  the  storm  match- 
ing his  might  against  it — now  soaring  up  to  overcome  it — now 
sinking  down  to  undermine  it — now  screaming  aloud  in  its 
teeth — now  half-choked  in  the  gust  of  its  fury — but  always 
moving  onwards,  and  sometimes  riding  triumphant  on  its 


92  A    CONSTELLATION    OF    SACRED    AUTHORS. 


changed  or  subjugated  billow  !  But  all  this  did  not  (except 
to  those  who  had  witnessed  the  phenomenon)  tend  to  increase 
the  artistic  merit  or  permanent  effect  of  his  works. 

No  oratory  can  be  printed  entire.  Every  speaker,  who  is 
not  absolutely  dull  and  phlegmatic,  says  something  far  more 
through  his  tones,  or  eye,  or  gestures,  than  his  bare  words  can 
tell.  But  this  is  more  the  case  with  some  than  with  others. 
About  the  speaking  of  Whitfield  there  was  a  glare  of — shall 
we  say  vulgar  ? — earnestness,  which,  along  with  his  theatrical, 
but  transcendent  elocution,  lives  only  in  tradition.  It  was 
the  same  with  Kirwan,  a  far  more  commonplace  man.  Stru- 
thers,  a  Relief  minister  in  Edinburgh,  at  the  beginning  of  this 
century,  seems  to  have  possessed  the  same  incommunicable 
power,  and  his  sermon  on  the  battle  of  Trafalgar  lives  as  a 
miraculous  memory  on  the  minds  of  a  few — and  nowhere  else. 
The  late  Dr.  Heugh,  of  Glasgow,  possessed  a  Canning-like 
head,  as  well  as  a  certain  copperplate  charm  in  his  address, 
which  have  not,  as  they  could  not,  be  transferred  to  his  print- 
ed sermons.  And  so,  in  perhaps  a  still  larger  degree,  with 
Dr.  Chalmers ;  the  difference  being,  that  while  in  the  others 
the  manner  seemed  to  fall  out  from  the  man,  like  a  gay  but 
becoming  garment,  in  Chalmers  it  was  wrapped  convulsively 
around  him,  like  the  mantle  of  a  dying  Caesar.  It  is  but  his 
naked  body  that  we  now  behold. 

Finer  still  it  was,  we  have  been  told,  to  come  in  suddenly 
upon  the  inspired  man  in  his  study,  when  the  full  heat  of  his 
thought  had  kindled  up  his  being  into  a  flame — when,  in  con- 
cert with  the  large  winter  fire  blazing  beside  him,  his  eye  was 
flaming  and  speaking  to  itself — his  brow  flushing  like  a  cloud 
in  ios  solitude — his  form  moving  like  that  of  a  Pythoness  on 
her  stool — and  now  and  then  his  voice  bursting  silence,  and 
showing  that,  as  often  in  the  church  he  seemed  to  fancy  him- 
self in  solitude,  so,  often  in  solitude,  he  thought  himself 
thundering  in  the  church.  Those  who  saw  him  in  such  moods 
had  come  into  the  forge  of  the  Cyclops ;  and  yet  so  far  was  he 
from  being  disturbed  or  angry,  he  would  rise  and  salute  them 
with  perfect  politeness,  and  even  kindliness ;  but  they  were 
the  politeness  and  kindliness  of  one  who  had  been  interrupted 
while  forming  a  two-edged  sword  for  Mars,  or  carving  another 
figure  upon  the  shield  of  Achilles. 


DR.    CHALMERS.  93 


It  is  curious,  entering  in  spirit  into  the  studies  or  retire- 
ments of  great  authors,  in  the  past  or  the  present,  and  watch- 
ing their  various  kinds  and  degrees  of  excitement  while  com- 
posing their  productions.  We  see  a  number  of  interesting 
figures — Homer,  with  his  sightless  eyes,  but  ears  preterna- 
turally  open,  rhapsodizing  to  the  many-sounding  sea  his  im- 
mortal harmonies — Eschylus,  so  agitated  (according  to  tradi- 
tion) while  framing  his  terrible  dialogues  and  choruses,  that 
he  might  have  been  mistaken  for  his  own  Orestes  pursued  by 
the  Furies — Dante,  stern,  calm,  silent,  yet  with  a  fierce  glance 
at  times  from  his  hollow  eye,  and  a  convulsive  movement  in 
his  tiger-like  lower  jaw,  telling  of  the  furor  that  was  boiling 
within — Shakspeare,  serene  even  over  his  tragic,  and  smiling  a 
gentle  smile  over  his  comic,  creations — Scott,  preserving, 
alike  in  depicting  the  siege  of  Torquilstone,  the  humors  of 
Caleb  Balderstone,  and  the  end  of  the  family  of  Ravenswood, 
the  same  gruff  yet  good-natured  equanimity  of  countenance — 
Byron,  now  scowling  a  fierce  scowl  over  his  picture  of  a  ship- 
wreck, and  now  grinning  a  ghastly  smile  while  dedicating  his 
"  Don  Juan"  to  Southey — Shelley,  wearing  on  his  fine  features 
a  look  of  perturbation  and  wonder,  as  of  a  cherub  only  half  fallen, 
a;;d  not  yet  at  home  in  his  blasphemous  attitude  of  opposition 
to  the  Most  High — Wordsworth,  murmuring  a  solemn  music 
over  the  slowly-filling  page  of  "  Ruth,"  or  the  "  Eclipse  in 
Italy" — Coleridge,  nearly  asleep,  and  dreaming  over  his  own 
gorgeous  creations,  like  a  drowsy  bee  in  a  heather  bloom — 
Wilson,  as  Hogg  describes  him,  when  they  sat  down  to  write 
verses  in  neighboring  rooms,  howling  out  his  enthusiasm  (and 
when  he  came  to  this  pitch,  poor  Hogg  uniformly  felt  himself 
vanquished,  and  threw  down  his  pen  !) — or,  in  fine,  Chalmers, 
os  aforesaid,  agonizing  in  the  sweat  of  his  great  intellectual 
travail ! 

We  have  spoken  of  Chalmers  as  possessed  of  an  idea  which 
drowned  his  personal  feelings,  and  pressed  all  his  powers  into 
one  focus.  This  varied,  of  course,  very  much  at  different 
stages  of  his  history.  It  was,  at  first,  that  of  a  purely  scien- 
tific theism.  He  believed  in  God  as  a  dry  demonstrated  fact, 
which  he  neither  trembled  at  nor  loved — whose  personality  ho 
granted,  but  scarcely  seems  to  have  felt.  From  this  he  pass- 
ed to  a  more  decided  form  of  belief,  worship,  and  love  for  the 


94  A    CONSTELLATION    OF    SACRED    AUTHORS. 


great  I  Am,  and  is  said  to  have  spent  a  portion  of  his  youth 
in  constant  and  delighted  meditation  upon  God  and  his  works, 
like  one  of  the  ancient  Indian  or  Egyptian  mystics.  From 
this  pillar  he  descended,  and,  as  a  preacher,  tried  to  form  a 
compromise  between  science  and  a  certain  shallow  and  stripped 
form  of  Christianity.  The  attempt  was  sincere,  but  absurd 
in  idea,  and  unsuccessful  in  execution.  The  vitality  of  Chris- 
tianity became  next  his  darling  argument,  and  was  pled  by 
him  with  unmitigated  urgency  for  many  years.  Christianity 
must  be  alive,  active,  aggressive,  or  was  no  Christianity  at  all. 
This  argument  began,  by  and  by,  in  his  mind  to  strike  out 
into  various  branches.  If  alive  and  life-giving,  Christianity 
ought  to  give  life,  first  of  all,  to  literary  and  scientific  men ; 
secondly,  to  the  commercial  classes;  thirdly,  to  the  poor; 
and  fourthly,  to  governments.  And  we  may  see  this  four- 
headed  argument  pervadiug  his  book  on  Astronomy,  his  "  Ser- 
mons on  Commerce,"  his  "  Christian  and  Civic  Economy  of 
large  Towns,"  and  his  innumerable  brochures  on  the  questions 
of  Church  Extension  and  of  Non-intrusion.  Nay,  in  his 
penultimate  paper  in  the  "  North  British  Review,"  we  find 
him,  almost  with  his  last  breath,  renewing  the  cry  for  "  fruit," 
as  the  main  answer  to  that  tide  of  German  scepticism  which 
none  saw  more  clearly  than  he  coming  over  the  church  and  the 
world.  That  he  always  pled  this  great  argument  of  practical- 
izing  Christianity  with  discretion  or  success,  we  are  far  from 
asserting  ;  nay,  we  grant  that  he  committed  as  many  blunders 
as  he  gained  triumphs.  Nor  have  the  results  been  commen- 
surate. Literary  and  scientific  men  have  not,  alas,  listened 
to  the  voice  of  this  charmer,  but  have  walked  on  their  own 
uneasy  way,  over  the  "  burning  marie"  of  unhappy  specula- 
tion. The  commercial  spirit  of  the  times  is  far  enough  yet 
from  being  thoroughly  Christianized ;  and  the  golden  rule 
does  not  yet  hang  suspended  over  our  warehouses  and  dock- 
yards. The  poor  are,  as  a  mass,  sinking  every  year  more  and 
more  deeply  into  the  gulfs  of  infidelity  and  vice ;  and  the 
great  problem  of  how  the  State  is  to  help — if  it  help  at  all — 
the  Church,  seems  as  far  from  solution  as  in  the  year  1843  or 
1847.  Still,  Chalmers  has  not  lived  in  vain.  He  has  left  a 
burning  testimony  against  many  of  the  crying  evils  of  his 
time,  especially  against  that  Selfishness  which  is  poisoning  al- 


DR.    CHALMERS.  95 


most  all  ranks  alike,  and  in  which,  as  iu  one  stagnant  pool,  so 
many  elements,  otherwise  discordant,  are  satisfied  to  "  putrify 
in  peace."  He  has  taken  up  the  reproach  of  the  gospel,  and 
bound  it  as  a  crown  around  his  brow.  From  the  most  power- 
ful pulpit  in  the  land,  he  preached  Christ  and  him  crucified. 
He  has  created  various  benevolent  and  pious  movements, 
which  are  likely  long  to  perpetuate  his  memory.  And  he  has 
laid  his  hand  upon,  and  to  some  degree,  although  not  alto- 
gether, shattered  those  barriers — either  absurd  iu  the  folly  of 
man,  or  awful  in  the  providence  of  God — which  have  too  long 
separated  Christian  principle  from  general  progress,  the  Bible 
from  the  people,  the  pulpit  from  the  press,  and  made  religion 
little  else  than  "  a  starry  stranger"  in  an  alien  land.  We  ac- 
cept him  as  a  rude  type  of  better  things — as  the  dim  day-star 
of  a  new  and  brighter  era. 

We  linger  as  we  trace  over  in  thought  the  leading  incidents 
of  his  well-known  story.  We  see  the  big-headed,  warm-hearted, 
burly  boy,  playing  upon  the  beach  at  Anstruther,  and  seeming 
like  a  gleam  of  early  sunshine  upon  that  coldest  of  all  coasts. 
We  follow  him  as  he  strides  along  with  large,  hopeful,  awk- 
ward steps  to  the  gate  of  St.  Andrews.  We  see  him,  a  second 
Dominie  Sampson,  in  his  tutor's  garret  at  Arbroath,  in  the 
midst  of  a  proud  and  pompous  family — himself  as  proud, 
though  not  so  pompous,  as  they.  We  follow  him  next  to  the 
peaceful  manse  of  Kilmauy,  standing  amid  its  green  woods  and 
hills,  in  a  very  nook  of  the  land,  whence  he  emerges,  now  to 
St.  Andrews  to  battle  with  the  stolid  and  slow-moving  Pro- 
fessors of  that  day,  now  to  Dundee  to  buy  materials  for 
chemical  research  (on  one  occasion  setting  himself  on  fire  with 
some  combustible  substance,  and  requiring  to  run  to  a  farm- 
house to  get  himself  put  out !),  now  to  the  woods  and  hills 
around  to  botanise — ay,  even  on  the  Sabbath-day! — and  now 
to  Edinburgh  to  attend  the  General  Assembly,  and  give  earn- 
est of  those  great  oratorical  powers  which  were  afterwards  to 
astonish  the  Church  and  the  world.  With  solemn  awe  we 
stand  by  his  bedside  during  that  long,  mysterious  illness,  which 
brought  him  to  himself,  and  taught  him  that  religion  was  a  re- 
ality, as  profound  as  sin,  sickness,  and  death.  We  mark  him 
then,  rising  up  from  his  couch,  like  an  eagle  newly  bathed — 
like  a  giant  refreshed — and  commencing  that  course  of  evan- 


96  A    CONSTELLATION    OF    SACRED    AUTHORS. 


gelical  teaching  and  action  only  to  be  terminated  in  the  grave. 
We  pursue  him  to  Glasgow,  and  see  him  sitting  down  in  a  plain 
house  in  Sauchiehall  Road,  and  proceeding  to  write  sermons 
which  are  to  strike  that  city  like  a  planet,  and  make  him  the 
real  King  of  the  West.  We  mark  him  next,  somewhat  worn 
and  wearied,  returning  to  his  alma  mater,  to  resume  his  old 
games  of  golf  on  the  Links,  his  old  baths  in  the  Bay,  and  to 
give  an  impetus,  which  has  never  yet  entirely  subsided,  to  that 
grass-grown  city  of  Rutherford  and  Halyburton.  Next  we  see 
him  bursting  like  a  shell  this  narrow  confine,  and  soaring  away 
to  "stately  Edinburgh,  throned  on  crags,"  to  become  there  a 
principality  and  power  among  many,  and  to  give  stimulus  and 
inspiration  to  hosts  of  young  aspirants. 

With  less  pleasure  we  follow  the  after-steps  of  his  career — 
the  restless  and  uneasy  agitations  in  which  he  engaged,  which 
shook  the  energies  of  his  constitution,  impaired  the  freshness 
of  his  mind,  and  paved  the  way  for  his  premature  and  hasty  end. 
With  deep  interest,  however,  we  see  him  sitting  at  the  head  of 
a  new  and  powerful  ecclesiastical  body,  which  owed,  if  not  its 
existence,  yet  much  of  its  glory,  to  him  ;  so  that  the  grey  head  of 
Chalmers  in  that  Canonmills  Hall  seemed  to  outshine  the 
splendors  of  mitres,  and  coronets,  and  crowns.  We  watch 
him  with  still  profounder  feelings,  preaching  to  the  poor  out- 
casts of  the  West  Port,  or  sitting  like  a  little  child  beside 
them,  as  others  are  telling  them  the  simple  story  of  the  Cross. 
We  follow  him  on  his  "  last  pilgrimage"  to  the  south — con- 
fronting senates — going  out  of  his  way  to  visit  the  widows  of 
Hall  and  Foster — bursting  into  the  studies  of  sublime  unhap- 
py sceptics,  and  giving  them  a  word  in  season — preaching 
wherever  he  had  opportunity,  and  returning  in  haste  to  die ! 
And  our  thoughts  and  feelings  rise  to  a  climax,  as  we  hear  the 
midnight  cry,  "  Behold,  the  Bridegroom  cometh  !"  raised  be- 
side his  couch ;  and,  entering  in,  behold  the  grand  old  Chris- 
tian Giant — the  John  Knox  of  the  nineteenth  century — laid 
gently  on  his  pillow,  asleep,  with  that  sleep  which  knows  no 
waking,  till  the  trumpet  shall  sound,  and  when  HE  surely  shall 
be  among  the  foremost  to  rise  to  meet  the  Master,  and  to  go  in 
with  him  into  the  eternal  banqueting-room. 

What  divine  of  the  age,  on  the  whole,  can  we  name  with 
Chalmers  ?  Horsley  was,  perhaps,  an  abler  man,  but  where 


DR.  CHALMERS. 


the  moral  grandeur  ?  Hall  had  the  moral  grandeur,  and  a  far 
more  cultivated  mind  ;  Foster  had  a  sterner,  loftier,  and  rich- 
er genius  ;  but  where,  in  either,  the  seraphic  ardour,  activity, 
and  energy  of  Christian  character  possessed  by  Chalmers  ? 
Irving,  as  an  orator,  had  more  artistic  skill,  and,  at  the  same 
time,  his  blood  was  warm  with  a  more  volcanic  and  poetic  fire; 
but  he  was  only  a  brilliant  fragment,  not  a  whole — he  was  a  me- 
teor to  a  star — a  comet  to  a  sun — a  Vesuvius,  peaked,  blue, 
crowned  with  fire,  to  a  domed  Mont  Blanc,  that  altar  of  God's 
morning  and  evening  sacrifice,  Chalmers  stood  alone;  and 
centuries  may  elapse  ere  the  Church  shall  see — and  when  did 
she  ever  more  need  to  see  ? — another  such  spirit  as  he. 

We  come  now,  in  fine,  to  examine  the  argument  of  the  "  As- 
tronomical Discourses,"  and  to  make  a  few  closing  remarks  on 
Astronomy,  expanding,  and  in  some  important  points  modify- 
ing, the  views  propounded  in  our  "  First  Gallery." 

The  "  Astronomical  Discourses"  were  a  kind  of  chemico- 
theologic  experiment  at  the  beginning.  Chalmers  was  fond, 
we  know,  of  turning  the  air-pump,  as  well  as  of  pursuing  the 
queerest  chemical,  or  pneumatic,  or  dietetic  whims.  Soon  af- 
ter he  arrived  in  Glasgow,  and  while  the  city  was  yet  vibrating  to 
the  electric  shock  he  gave  it  on  his  first  entrance,  he  determined  to 
deepen  and  prolong  the  thrill,  by  snatching  an  argument  for 
Christianity  from  the  stars.  He  had  often  gazed  at  the  gleaming 
host  of  Heaven,  now  with  the  mathematical  purpose  of  the 
astronomer,  and  now  with  the  abandonment  and  enthusiasm  of 
the  poet.  Along  with  stars,  doubts  and  dark  questions  had 
shot  across  his  soul,  and  he  set  himself,  in  his  "  Astronomical 
Discourses,"  in  seeking  to  answer  the  objections  of  others,  to 
give  and  to  enshrine  the  reply  to  his  own. 

Sooth  to  say,  the  answer  was  about  as  shallow  as  the  argu- 
ment. All  attacks  on  Christianity  founded  on  physics  are  es- 
sentially and  ab  originie  worthless.  Christianity  has  nothing 
whatever  to  do  with  physical  or  metaphysical  conjectures  about 
the  conformation  of  the  universe  ;  and  nothing  yet  has  trans- 
pired beyond  conjecture  on  that  wondrous  theme.  Even  grav- 
itation is  but  a  big- sounding  name  for  a  series  of  inscrutable 
affinities  between  larger  and  lesser  particles  of  matter ;  and 
truly  did  Newton  call  himself  a  boy,  gathering,  in  his  resplen- 
dent generalisations,  only  a  few  bigger  and  brighter  pebbles  on 


98  A    CONSTELLATION    OF    BACHED    AUTHORS. 


the  shore  of  the  unsearchable  ocean  of  truth.  Even  the  peb- 
bles HE  gathered  may  yet  be  more  severely  analysed  and  found 
perhaps  to  be  air  !  In  metaphysics  it  is  still  worse.  For  there 
we  have  not  even  pebbles ;  but  a  shower  of  conflicting  sand- 
grains  tossed  up  and  down  upon  breaths  as  vain  and  varied  as 
the  winds  of  the  African  wilderness  ! 

Across  this  wide  and  burning  waste  of  stones  and  shifting 
sands  of  thought,  there  came,  2000  years  ago,  a  still  small  voice 
— the  voice  of  the  Man-G-od  of  Galilee,  saying,  nor  saying  in 
vain,  "  Peace,  be  still."  He  was  no  physicist — only  the 
waves  obeyed  his  voice^  He  was  no  metaphysician — only  He 
"  knew  what  was  in  man."  He  never  discoursed  on  sympathy 
or  patriotism,  but  His  heart  bled  at  the  tales  and  sight  of  the 
wretched,  the  forlorn,  and  the  forgotten.  He  uttered  no  dog- 
matic system  either  of  morality,  or  politics,  or  religion,  but  he 
spoke  as  never  man  spake ;  He  breathed,  as  it  were,  on  the 
world,  and  it  revived  at  the  breath  ;  His  word  was  the  inspi- 
ration, His  death  the  life,  and  His  last  blessing  the  legacy  of 
the  world.  His  faith  at  once  established  itself  as  something 
entirely  different  from,  and  incomparably  higher  than  all  earth- 
ly systems  and  theories.  It  appealed  directly  to  the  moral 
nature.  It  sought  and  found  an  echo  in  the  heart  and  con- 
science. There  it  fixed,  and  there  it  still  holds  its  inexpugn- 
able foundations.  It  is  friendly  to  all  true  philosophy,  and 
science,  and  literature ;  but  it  regards  them  as  we  could  con- 
ceive an  angel  regarding  an  assembly  of  earthly  sages.  It  is 
not  of  their  order.  It  is  impassive  to  all  scientific  attacks, 
and  hardly  requires  scientific  defence.  It  dwells  apart — a  glo- 
rious anomaly,  even  as  its  founder  was.  It  is  a  stranger  on 
the  earth,  and  its  great  purpose  is  to  gather  its  own  out  of  this 
ruined  world,  and  to  take  them  away  to  heaven. 

Hence,  we  repeat,  attacks,  however  able  and  ingenious,  may 
seem  to  shake,  but  cannot  overturn  it.  They  have  never  been 
able  to  approach  its  seat  of  life  or  its  fortress  of  power.  What, 
for  example,  has  it  to  do  with  the  length  of  time  taken  up  in 
building  this  globe,  or  with  the  size  of  the  starry  firmament  ? 
Christ  came  not  to  give  any  information  on  these  subjects,  but 
to  announce  the  "  golden  rule."  Paul  preached  not  on  such 
topics,  but  on  righteousness,  temperance,  and  judgment  to 
come.  The  gospel  is  a  message  of  mercy  to  a  fallen  race,  and 


DR.   CHALMERS.  99 


bears  no  other  burden  with  it.  It  has  not  been  elicited  or 
elaborated  from  the  universe,  or  the  mind  of  man — it  has  come 
into  both  from  a  higher  region,  and  it  is  not  amenable  to  the 
laws  of  this  cold  and  cloudy  clime.  Shake  its  power  over  the 
moral  nature,  and  you  destroy  its  essence ;  but,  as  long  as  this 
remains,  all  minor  difficulties  and  objections  pass  by  like  the 
idle  wind. 

Dr.  Chalmers  does  not  seem,  at  least  when  writing  his 
"  Astronomical  Discourses,"  to  have  been  sufficiently  im- 
pressed with  these  views  of  Christianity.  He  was,  on  the 
contrary,  anxious  to  find  for  it  a  scientific  basis,  and  to  an- 
swer all  scientific  objections.  He  found  one  of  these  floating 
about  in  conversation — it  had  probably  often  impressed  his 
own  mind — and  he  must  drag  it  forth  and  put  it  to  death. 
This  attempt  he  has  made  with  prodigious  energy,  but,  we 
humbly  think,  with  indifferent  success.  He  has  mangled,  it 
may  be,  the  neck  of  the  victim  with  his  steel,  but  he  has  not 
deprived  it  even  of  the  little  life  it  had. 

The  first  of  these  famous  sermons  is  a  powerful  sketch  of 
the  modern  astronomy.  It  blazes  like  a  January  Heaven. 
He  mounts  up  toward  his  magnificent  theme  like  a  strong 
eagle  toward  the  sun,  and  his  eye  never  winks,  and  his  wing 
never  for  a  moment  flags.  We,  who  have  been  so  long  famil- 
iar with  the  facts  of  astronomy,  have  no  conception  of  the 
freshness  and  the  overwhelming  force  with  which,  in  Chalmers's 
style,  they  fell  on  a  Presbyterian  Glasgow  audience  in  the 
year  1817.  Few  of  the  common  class  of  Calvinists  in  Scot- 
land, at  that  date,  were  even  Copernicans ;  down  as  far  as  the 
year  1825  or  1826,  we  have  heard  some  of  them  gravely  main- 
taining that  there  were  only  "  two  worlds — that  which  is,  and 
that  which  is  to  come."  How  amazed  must  these  readers  of 
Boston's  "  Fourfold  State"  have  been,  to  hear  their  most 
admired  divine  pouring  out  his  sublime  Newtonics  from  the 
Tron  Church  pulpit  with  such  fearlessness  and  freedom ! 
What  had  seemed  heresy  from  any  other  man,  seemed  from 
Chalmers  revelation.  He  stood  up  week  after  week,  and  read 
off  to  astonished  crowds  the  burning  hieroglyphics  of  the  orbs 
of  heaven.  The  excitement  was  unparalleled.  The  novelty 
of  the  theme — the  daring  of  some  of  the  individual  flights — 
the  apparent  force  of  the  argumentation — the  almost  super- 


100  A    CONSTELLATION    OF    SACRKD    A'JTHORS. 


human  excitation  of  the  orator,  who  seemed  to  heave,  and 
leap,  and  swelter,  and  burn,  and  groan  under  the  burden  of 
immediate  inspiration,  carried  Glasgow  away  in  a  whirlwind. 
We  were  then  mere  children,  nor  did  we  hear  Chalmers  till 
fourteen  years  later ;  but,  great  as  his  excitement  continued, 
we  were  assured  by  those  who  had  heard  him  in  earlier  days, 
that  it  was  calmness  compared  to  the  prophetic  fury  with 
which  he  delivered  his  "  Astronomical  Discourses." 

Professor  Nichol  has  come  after,  and  in  some  measure  sup- 
planted Chalmers  as  an  eloquent  interpreter  to  the  language 
of  the  stars.  Without  the  rapt  and  rushing  force  of  Chal- 
mers's style,  he  has  a  calm  and  deep  hush  of  manner  as  he 
walks  under  the  stupendous  sublimities  of  his  subject,  which 
is  very  thrilling.  Chalmers  claps  his  hands  in  enthusiastic 
joy,  as  he  looks  up  toward  the  gleaming  midnight;  Nichol 
bows  his  head  before  it.  Chalmers  is  moved  and  moves  us 
most  to  rapture ;  Nichol  is  moved  and  moves  us  most  to  won- 
der. Chalmers  plunges  like  a  strong  swimmer  into  the  stellar 
ocean,  and  ploughs  his  nervous  way  through  its  burning  waves ; 
Nichol  walks  beside  it  on  tiptoe,  and  points  in  silent  awe  to 
its  unutterable  grandeur.  While  Chalmers  shouts,  "  Glo- 
rious!"— while  Carlyle  sighs,  "Ah  !  it's  a  sad  sight" — Nichol, 
perhaps  more  forcibly,  expresses  his  emotion  by  folding  his 
arms,  and  speaking  in  whispers,  or  remaining  dumb. 

The  second  discourse  is  on  the  "  Modesty  of  True  Science," 
and  is  chiefly  remarkable  for  its  panegyric  on  Sir  Isaac  New- 
ton— certainly  the  noblest  tribute  to  that  illustrious  man  ever 
paid,  unless  we  except  Thomson's  fervid  poem  on  bis  death. 
Yet,  while  panegyrising  "modesty,"  the  author  makes  one  or 
two  rather  bold  and  unwarranted  suppositions ;  for  instance, 
that  sin  has  probably  found  its  way  into  other  worlds — that 
the  Eternal  Son  "  may  have  had  the  government  of  many  sin- 
ful worlds  laid  upon  his  shoulders" — and  that  the  Spirit 
"  may  now  be  working  with  the  fragments  of  another  chaos, 
and  educing  order,  and  obedience,  and  harmony  out  of  the 
wrecks  of  a  moral  rebellion,  which  reaches  through  all  these 
spheres,  and  spreads  disorder  to  the  uttermost  limits  of  our 
astronomy."  Indeed,  the  great  defect  of  these  discourses  is, 
that  he  is  perpetually  meeting  assumptions  with  assumptions, 
and  repelling  one  conjecture  by  another  equally  groundless. 


DR.  CHALMERS.  101 


In  the  third  sermon  he  states  the  infidel  argument  as  follows  : 
— "  Such  a  humble  portion  of  the  universe  as  ours  could  never 
have  been  the  object  of  such  high  and  distinguishing  attentions 
as  Christianity  has  assigned  to  it.  God  would  not  have  mani- 
fested himself  in  the  flesh  for  the  salvation  of  so  paltry  a 
world.  The  monarch  of  a  whole  continent  would  never  move 
from  his  capital,  and  lay  aside  the  splendor  of  royalty,  and 
subject  himself  for  months  or  for  years  to  perils,  and  poverty, 
and  persecution,  and  take  up  his  abode  in  some  small  islet  of 
his  dominions,  which,  though  swallowed  by  an  earthquake, 
could  not  be  missed  amid  the  glories  of  so  wide  an  empire  ; 
and  all  this  to  regain  the  lost  affection  of  a  few  families  upon 
its  surface.  And  neither  would  the  Eternal  Son  of  God — he 
who  is  revealed  to  us  as  having  made  all  worlds,  and  as  hold- 
ing an  empire  amid  the  splendors  of  which  the  globe  that  we 
inherit  is  shaded  in  insignificance — neither  would  he  strip  him- 
self of  the  glory  he  had  with  the  Father  before  the  world  was, 
and  light  on  this  lower  scene,  for  the  purpose  imputed  to  him 
in  the  New  Testament.  Impossible  that  the  concerns  of  this 
puny  ball,  which  floats  its  little  round  among  an  infinity  of 
larger  worlds,  should  be  of  such  mighty  account  in  the  plans 
of  the  Eternal,  or  should  have  given  birth  in  heaven  to  so 
wonderful  a  movement  as  the  Son  of  God  putting  on  the  form 
of  our  degraded  species,  and  sojourning  among  us,  and  sharing 
in  all  our  infirmities,  and  crowning  the  whole  scene  of  humilia- 
tion, by  the  disgrace  and  the  agonies  of  a  cruel  martyrdom." 

We  will  not  stop  to  object  to  the  theological  mis-statement 
in  one  of  the  sentences  of  this  passage.  Christ  did  not,  could 
not  lay  aside  the  "  splendor  of  royalty" — he  merely  veiled  it 
from  the  eyes  of  men,  and  it  was  not  "  himself,"  in  the  whole 
meaning  of  that  expression,  but  simply  his  human  nature,  that 
was  subjected  to  "  perils,  and  poverty,"  and  persecution." 

But,  waiving  this,  let  us  notice  how  Chalmers  proceeds  to 
answer  the  objection.  He  does  this  first  by  dwelling,  with 
much  munificence  and  rhythmical  flow  of  language,  upon  the 
extent  of  the  Divine  condescension ;  and  his  picture  of  the 
powers  and  acbievements  of  the  microscope  is  exceedingly 
beautiful.  Yet  it  is  one-sided.  For,  if  the  microscope  shows 
us  Divine  Providence  watching  over  the  very  lowest  hem  and 
skirts  of  animal  existence,  does  it  not  also  show  us  rage,  ani- 


102  A    CONSTELLATION    OF    SACRED    AUTHORS. 


mosity,  evil,  and  death  burning  on  the  very  brink  of  nothing 
< — a  Waterloo  in  every  water  drop  ?  Besides,  the  microscope 
serves  only  to  prove  the  universal  prevalence  of  certain  laws ; 
it  does  not  discover  any  analogy  to  that  special  love  and  super- 
natural interference  found  in  the  history  of  Christianity.  It 
proves  simply  that  God  condescends  to  care  for  every  being  he 
has  condescended  to  create;  but  would  never,  previous  to 
experience,  suggest  the  possibility  of  God  saving,  by  a  pecu- 
liar and  abnormal  method,  a  race  that  had  fallen.  On  such  a 
subject,  telescope  and  miscroscope  are  alike  silent;  they  say 
nothing  for  it,  but  they  say  nothing  against  it.  The  whole 
discourse,  therefore,  we  consider  an  eloquent  evasion  of  the 
question,  notwithstanding  the  magnificent  burst  with  which  it 
closes,  the  reading  of  which,  by  himself,  we  have  already 
described. 

In  his  fourth  discourse  he  attempts  to  prove  that  man's 
moral  history  is  known  in  distant  parts  of  the  creation ;  and 
thence  to  argue  its  vast  importance  and  general  bearings. 
The  evidence  he  produces  is  entirely  derived  from  Scripture, 
and  is  neither  very  abundant  nor  very  strong.  He  tries  to 
show,  first,  that  "the  history  of  the  redemption  of  our  species 
is  known  in  other  and  distant  parts  of  the  creation  ;  and  then, 
secondly,  indistinctly  to  guess  at  the  fact  that  the  redemption 
itself  may  stretch  beyond  the  limits  of  the  world  we  occupy." 

In  reference  to  the  first,  he  tells  us  that  Scripture  "  speaks 
most  clearly  and  most  decisively  about  the  knowledge  of 
man's  redemption  being  disseminated  among  other  orders  of 
created  intelligence  than  our  own."  And  yet,  strange  to  say, 
the  first  proof  he  produces  of  this  is  the  conversation  on  Mount 
Tabor  between  Moses  and  Elias  with  Jesus,  on  the  "  decease 
to  be  accomplished  at  Jerusalem,"  as  if  these  two  glorified 
beings  belonged  to  another  "  order  of  created  intelligence" 
than  ours — as  if  they  were  not  the  "  spirits  of  just  MEN  made 
perfect."  He  next  introduces  the  song  of  the  angels,  and  the 
text  "  unto  these  things  the  angels  desire  to  look" — forgetting 
that  the  angels  are  circulating  perpetually  through  the  uni- 
verse ;  that  they  are  the  servants — the  ministering  spirits — 
of  the  good ;  and  that  it  is  impossible  to  argue  from  their 
knowledge  of  our  earthly  affairs  to  that  of  the  myriads  of  sta- 
tionary inhabitants  of  space — if  such  there  be  in  the  other 


DR.  CHALMERS.  1  03 


planets  and  systems  of  the  universe.  There  had  not  then 
appeared  Isaac  Taylor's  admirable  paper  entitled  the  "  State 
of  Seclusion."  in  which  the  author  shows  so  strikingly  the 
advantages  which  have  accrued  from  the  insulated  position  of 
the  various  worlds  of  space,  as  securing  more  completely  the 
probation  of  moral  beings.  What  Taylor  means  is  this : 
could  we,  from  this  isle  of  earth,  see  all  the  consequences, 
whether  of  good  or  of  bad,  as  manifested  in  the  innumerable 
orbs,  which  he  supposes  to  be  replete  with  intellectual  and 
moral  life,  we  should  be  driven,  not  led,  from  vice  and  into 
virtue — so  enormous  would  appear  the  superiority  of  the  one 
over  the  other  in  its  effects.  But  God  has  secluded  us  from 
other  worlds,  and  them  from  us,  that  our  will  may  have  freer 
play  in  choosing  good  and  refusing  evil ;  that  the  great  irre- 
vocable choice  may  be  less  a  matter  of  necessity  and  of  terror, 
and  more  of  voluntary  consent.  IJence,  too,  the  deep  shroud 
of  darkness  which  Scripture  keeps  suspended  over  the  secrets 
of  the  future  world.  Dr.  Chalmers,  £00,  in  the  passages  he 
quotes  about  Christ's  gathering  into  one  all  things  in  heaven 
and  in  earth,  and  about  "  every  creature  which  is  in  heaven, 
and  on  the  earth,  and  under  the  earth,  and  such  as  are  in  the 
sea,  and  all  that  are  in  them,"  saying  "  Blessing,  and  honor, 
and  glory,  and  power  be  unto  him  that  sitteth  on  the  throne ; 
and  unto  the  Lamb  for  ever  and  ever" — does  not  advert  to 
the  fact  that  all  this  is  to  be  done,  and  said,  and  sung,  after 
this  present  system  has  passed.  Meanwhile,  there  is  not  the 
most  distant  evidence  that  the  inhabitants  of  other  worlds,  if 
such  there  be  (for  this,  too,  is  a  point  of  extreme  uncertainty), 
know  more  of  our  moral  state  than  we  do  of  theirs,  which  is 
precisely  nothing  at  all. 

The  fifth  discourse  of  the  series  contains  some  most  melting 
and  eloquent  descriptions  of  the  sympathy  felt  for  man  in  the 
distant  places  of  the  creation.  Still,  so  far  as  argument  is 
concerned,  it  does  not  help  forward  his  point  one  step.  For 
that  man  alone  has  fallen,  is  one  assumption;  and  even  sup- 
posing that  he  has,  that  this  is  known  throughout  the  whole 
universe  is  another.  Angels  do  know  indeed  that  man  is  a 
sinner,  and  do  feel  for  us ;  but  angels  can  hardly  be  called 
inhabitants  of  the  material  creation  at  all ;  they  are  celestial 
couriers,  winged  flames  passing  through  it ;  and  it  is  only  in- 


104  A    CONSTELLATION    OF    SACRED    AUTHORS. 


cidentally  that  we  know  that  even  they  sympathise  with  our 
low  and  lost  estate.  Again,  too,  we  urge  the  principle  of 
"seclusion;"  and  ask,  besides,  if  the  inhabitants  of  other 
planets  (supposing  such  there  be)  are  wwfallen,  might  not  the 
knowledge  of  a  fallen  earth  damp  their  joy  ?  if  they  are  fallen, 
might  it  not  encourage  their  rebellion  ? 

The  sixth  sermon  is  perhaps  the  most  powerful  of  the  seven. 
Fervet  immensusque  vuit.  Towards  the  close  especially  it 
becomes  a  torrent  of  fire.  After  describing  the  great  contest 
of  angels  and  demons  over  the  dead  Patroclus,  Man,  he  says  : 

"  But  this  wondrous  contest  will  come  to  a  close.  Sonic 
will  return  to  their  loyalty,  and  others  will  keep  by  their  re- 
bellion ;  and  in  the  day  of  the  winding-up  of  the  drama  of  this 
world's  history,  there  will  be  made  manifest  to  the  myriads  of 
the  various  orders  of  creation  both  the  mercy  and  the  vindi- 
cated majesty  of  the  Eternal.  Oh !  on  that  day,  how  vain 
will  this  presumption  of  the  infidel  astronomy  appear,  when 
the  affairs  of  men  come  to  be  examined  in  the  presence  of  an 
innumerable  company ;  and  beings  of  loftiest  nature  are  seen 
to  crowd  around  the  judgment-seat;  and  the  Savior  shall 
appear  in  our  sky,  with  a  celestial  retinue,  who  have  come 
with  him  from  afar  to  witness  all  his  doings,  and  to  take  a 
deep  and  solemn  interest  in  all  his  dispensations;  and  the 
destiny  of  our  species,  whom  the  infidel  would  thus  detach  in 
solitary  insignificance  from  the  universe  altogether,  shall  be 
found  to  merge  and  mingle  with  higher  destinies ;  the  good  to 
spend  their  eternity  with  angels — the  bad  to  spend  their  eter- 
nity with  angels;  the  former  to  be  re-admitted  into  the  uni- 
versal family  of  God's  obedient  worshippers — the  latter  to 
share  in  the  everlasting  pain  and  ignominy  of  the  rebellious ; 
the  people  of  this  planet  to  be  implicated  throughout  the  whole 
train  of  their  never-ending  history  with  the  higher  ranks  and 
more  extended  tribes  of  intelligence." 

This  passage  is  not  only  exceedingly  eloquent  and  solemn, 
but  seems  to  contain  the  strongest  argument  in  the  volume 
for  the  importance  of  man.  The  only  weak  point  in  the  ser- 
mon perhaps  lies  in  his  apparently  supposing  that  the  universe 
is  now  aware  of  this  mighty  contest  which  is  going  on  between 
purely  spiritual  beings  for  the  possession.  As  well  say  that 
all  Europe  was  literally  looking  on  Waterloo  on  the  very  day 


DR.   CHALMERS.  105 


of  the  battle  when  its  fate  was  decided.  This  earth  will  not 
assume  its  real  aspect  of  dignity  and  importance,  till  after  its 
wonderful  history  is  over,  and  perhaps  itself  burned  up. 

The  seventh  sermon  is  on  the  slender  influence  of  mere  taste 
and  sensibility  in  matters  of  religion ;  and  appears  indeed  to 
be  an  eloquent  apology  for  the  whole  series,  and  a  virtual 
admission  that  in  it  he  had  rather  pleased  the  taste  and 
touched  the  sensibility,  than  informed  the  judgment,  con- 
firmed the  faith,  or  refuted  the  adversary.  We  look,  in  fact, 
upon  this  volume  as  not  worthy,  as  a  whole,  of  its  author's 
talents.  It  is  a  mass  of  brilliant  froth.  The  thought  is 
slight  and  slender,  when  compared  to  the  abundance  of  the 
verbiage  which  clothes  it.  The  language  is  often  loose  and 
coarse  to  the  last  degree.  The  argument,  so  far  as  we  know, 
never  convinced  a  gainsaycr ;  and,  indeed,  none  but  a  very 
silly  infidel  could  have  been  convinced  by  it :  we  were  going 
to  say  that  none  but  a  very  feeble  thinker  could  even  have 
started  the  objection,  till  we  remembered,  not  only  that  it 
seems  to  have  rested  at  one  time  like  a  load  upon  Chalmers's 
own  soul — and  he,  need  we  say,  as  his  "  Bridgewater  Treatise" 
proves,  could  be  as  subtle  at  times  as  he  was  eloquent  always 
— but  that  Daniel  Webster  was  long  puzzled  and  kept  back 
from  embracing  Christianity  through  its  influence.  But  Web- 
ster, to  be  sure,  thought  generally  like  a  lawyer,  seldom  like  a 
legislator  or  philosopher.  He  was  one  of  those  men  of  whom 
Burke  says  "  Aristotle,  the  great  master  of  reasoning,  cautions 
us,  and  with  great  weight  and  propriety,  against  a  species  of 
delusive  geometrical  accuracy  in  moral  arguments,  as  the 
most  fallacious  of  all  sophistry." 

Let  us  now  try  ourselves  with  all  diffidence  to  meet  the 
objection  fairly  and  fully  in  the  face ;  and  we  would  do  so, 
first,  by  asking  what  has  magnitude  to  do  with  a  moral  ques- 
tion ?  secondly,  what,  above  all,  has  magnitude  to  do  with  a 
moral  question,  unless  it  be  proved  to  be  peopled  by  moral 
beings  ?  and,  thirdly,  what  is  magnitude  compared  to  mind  ? 

First,  What  has  magnitude  to  do  with  a  moral  question  ? 
what  has  the  size  of  a  man  to  do  with  his  soul  ?  is  not  the 
mind  the  standard  of  the  man  ?  What  has  the  size  of  a  city 
to  do  with  the  moral  character  of  its  inhabitants  ?  what  have 
size,  number,  and  quantity,  to  do  with  the  intellectual  or 


106  A    CONSTELLATION    OF    SACRED    AUTHORS. 


moral  interest,  which  may  be  or  may  not  be  connected  with 
the  plains  of  a  country  ?  Whether  is  Ben  Nevis  or  Bannock- 
burn  the  dearer  to  a  Scottish  heart — though  the  one  is  the 
prince  of  Scottish  hills,  and  the  other  only  a  paltry  plain, 
undistinguished  except  by  a  solitary  stone,  and  by  the  immor- 
tal memories  of  patriotism  and  of  courage  which  gather  around 
that  field  wherein  the  "  Scots  who  had  wi'  Wallace  bled  ''  bade 
"  Welcome  to  their  gory  bed,  or  to  victory  ?"  Whether  is 
Mont  Blanc  or  Morgarten  the  nobler  object,  though  the  one 
be  the  monarch  of  mountains,  and  the  other  only  an  obscure 
field,  where  the  Swiss  met  and  baffled  their  Austrian  oppres- 
sors, aud  first  in  the  shock  was  the  arm  of  William  Tell  ? 
Whether  is  dearer  to  the  Christian's  mind  Caucasus  or  Cal- 
vary ? — the  one  the  loftiest  of  Asia's  mountains,  the  other 
only  a  little  hill,  a  mere  dot  on  the  surface  of  the  globe  ?  So 
may  there  not  issue  from  this  tiny  earth  of  ours — from  the 
noble  deeds  it  has  witnessed,  from  the  high  aspirations  which 
have  been  breathed  up  from  it,  from  the  magnificent  thoughts 
which  have  been  conceived  on  its  surface,  from  the  eloquent 
words  that  have  stirred  its  air  into  music,  from  the  poets  who 
have  wrought  its  words  into  undying  song,  from  the  philoso- 
phers who  have  explained  the  secret  of  its  laws,  from  the  men 
of  God  who  have  knelt  down  in  its  temples — a  tide  of  glory 
before  which  the  lustre  of  suns  and  constellations  shall  tremble 
and  melt  away. 

But,  secondly,*  what  has  magnitude  to  do  with  a  moral 
question,  if  it  cannot  be  proved  that  that  magnitude  is  peopled 
with  moral  beings  ?  Science,  indeed,  may  and  does  hope  that 
each  fair  star  has  its  own  beautiful  and  happy  race  of  immor- 
tal intelligences ;  but  science  does  not  know.  For  aught  sci- 
ence knows,  there  may  be  no  immortal  intelligences  except 
man,  angels,  God,  and  devils,  in  the  wide  creation.  For  aught 
science  knows,  those  suns  and  systems  may  be  seen  only  by  our 
eyes  and  our  telescopes ;  for  aught  she  knows,  the  universe 
may  only  be  beginning  to  be  peopled,  and  earth  have  been  se- 
lected as  the  first  spot  for  the  great  colonization.  The  peo- 
pling of  our  own  planet  was  a  gradual  process.  Why  may  not 

*This  was  written  and  published  years  before  the  masterly  treatise 
on  the  "  Plurality  of  Worlds,"  attributed  to  Whewell,  appeared. 


DR.    CHALMERS.  107 


the  same  be  concluded  of  the  universe  of  which  our  earth  is  a 
part  ?  May  not  earth  in  this  sense  be  an  Eden  to  other  re- 
gions of  the  All  ?  Are  appearance  and  analogy  pleaded  as 
proofs  that  the  universe  is  peopled  throughout  ?  Appearance 
and  anology  here  utter  an  uncertain  sound  ;  for  are  not  all  the 
suns,  or  what  we  call  the  continents  of  creation,  seemingly 
burning  masses  uninhabitable  by  any  beings  we  can  even  con- 
ceive of?  Do  not  many  of  the  planets,  or  islands,  appear 
either  too  near  or  too  remote  from  the  central  blaze  to  support 
animal  existence  ?  The  moon  (the  only  planet  with  which  we 
are  particularly  acquainted)  has  manifestly  not  yet  arrived  at 
the  state  necessary  for  supporting  living  beings,  and  science  re- 
members that  innumerable  ages  passed  ere  even  our  globe  was 
fitted  for  receiving  its  present  population,  and  that,  according 
to  the  researches  of  geology,  the  earth  rolled  round  the  sun  for 
ages,  a  vast  and  weltering  wilderness.  Here,  then,  science  is 
totally  silent,  or  utters  only  a  faltering  "  perhaps."  Is  it  said, 
that  but  for  intelligent  beings  space  would  be  empty  ?  How ! 
empty  if  it  contain  an  entire  Deity  in  its  every  particle?  Is 
God  not  society  enough  for  his  own  creation  ?  Shall  you  call 
the  universe  empty,  if.  God  be  present  in  it,  even  though  he 
were  present  alone  ?  Science,  indeed,  grants  it  probable  that 
much  of  the  universe  is  already  peopled ;  but  she  grants  no 
more.  But  as  long  as  his  probability  is  not  swelled  to  a  cer- 
tainty, it  can  never  interfere  in  any  way  whatever  with  the  fix- 
ed, solid,  immutable  evidences  of  our  Christian  faith. 

We  ask,  thirdly,*  what  is  material  magnitude  compared  to 
mind  ?  The  question  is  :  Why  did  God,  who  made  the  vast 
creation,  interfere  to  save  the  human  spirit,  at  such  immense 
expense,  and  by  a  machinery  so  sublime  and  miraculous  !  Now, 
in  reply  to  this,  we  assert  the  ineffable  dignity  of  the  human 
spirit.  The  creation,  large  and  magnificent  as  it  is,  is  not 
equal  in  grandeur  to  one  immortal  mind.  Majestic  the  uni- 
verse is ;  but  can  it  think,  or  feel,  or  imagine,  or  hope,  or  love  ? 
"  Talk  to  me  of  the  sun  I" — one  might  say,  standing  up  in  all 
the  conscious  dignity  of  his  own  nature,  "  but  the  sun  is  not 
alive ;  he  is  but  a  dead  luminary  after  all ;  I  am  alive,  I  nev- 

*  We  quote  this  passage  from  the  "  First  Gallery,"  as  necessary  to 
>ur  argument  here. 


108  A    CONSTELLATION    OF    SACRED    AUTHORS. 


er  was  dead,  I  never  can  die ;  I  may  therefore  put  my  foot 
upon  that  proud  orb,  and  say,  I  am  greater  than  thou.  The 
sun  cannot  understand  the  geometry  of  his  own  motion,  nor 
the  laws  of  his  own  radiating  light.  I  can  do  both,  and  am, 
therefore,  immeasurably  greater  than  the  sun.  The  sun  can- 
not with  all  his  rays  write  on  flower,  or  grass,  or  the  broad 
page  of  ocean,  his  Maker's  name.  A  child  of  seven  years  old 
••an,  and  is  therefore  greater  than  the  sun.  The  sun  cannot 
from  his  vast  surface  utter  one  articulate  sound  ;  he  is  dumb  in 
his  magnificence  ;  but '  out  of  the  mouth  of  babes  and  sucklings' 
God  perfects  praise.  The  sun  cannot  love  one  of  the  planets 
which  revolve  round  his  ray.  You  and  I  can  love  all  beings ; 
nay,  were  our  heart  large  enough,  we  could,  in  the  language  of 
the  German,  '  Clasp  the  universe  to  our  bosom,  and  keep  it 
warm.'  The  sun  shall  be  plucked  froni  its  sphere,  and  perish, 
but  I  have  that  within  me  which  shall  never  die. 

'  The  sun  is  but  a  spark  of  fire,  a  transient  meteor  in  the  sky  ; 
But  I — immortal  as  his  sire,  shall  never  die  !" 

And  if  greater  than  the  sun,  I  am  greater  than  the  entire  uni- 
verse. It  might  indeed  rise  and  crush  rue,  but  I  should  know 
it  was  destroying  me,  whilst  it  would  crush  blindly  and  uncon- 
sciously. I  should  be  conscious  of  defeat  •  it  would  not  be 
conscious  of  victory.  The  universe  may  be  too  great  now 
for  the  grasp  of  my  intellect,  but  my  mind,  I  feel,  can  grow  to 
grasp  it.  The  universe,  in  fact,  is  only  the  nursery  to  my  im- 
mortal mind,  and  whether  is  greater — the  nursery  or  the  child  ? 
The  universe,  you  may  call  it  what  you  please ;  you  may  lav- 
ish epithet  upon  epithet  of  splendor  upon  it,  if  you  please ; 
but  you  can  never  call  it  one  thing — you  can  never  call  it  a 
spirit ;  and  if  not  a  spirit,  it  is  but  a  great  and  glorious  clod. 
But  I  am  a  spirit,  though  a  spirit  disguised  in  matter ;  an  im- 
mortality, though  an  immortality  veiled  in  flesh ;  a  beam  from  the 
source  of  light,  though  a  beam  that  has  gone  astray;  and  there- 
fore I  dare  to  predicate  even  of  my  own  fallen  nature,  that 
there  is  more  dignity,  and  grandeur,  and  value  in  it,  than  in 
the  whole  inanimate  creation ;  and  that  to  save  no  more  but  me, 
it  were  worth  while  for  the  Saviour  to  have  descended,  and  for 
the  Saviour  to  have  died." 


DR.    CHALMERS.  109 


We  pass  to  make  a  few  closing  remarks  on  some  points  con- 
nected with  the  "  Star-eyed  Science,"  premising  that  we 
are  mere  amateurs,  and  know  very  little  of  the  details  of  the 
study. 

We  yield  to  no  man  in  admiration  of  the  splendors  of  the 
heavens.  They  are  a  book  of  beauty,  opened  up  every  night 
over  our  heads,  and  each  beautiful  line  includes  a  great  and 
living  moral.  But  we  think,  first,  that  the  terms  "  Infinity," 
and  "  Immensity,"  are  unduly  applied  to  them.  Secondly, 
that  they  give  us  no  new  light  as  to  the  history  or  destiny  of 
man.  Thirdly,  that  the  telescope,  as  a  mental  and  magical  in- 
strument, has  been  overrated.  Fourthly,  that  the  inference  of 
the  insignificance  of  man,  drawn  from  the  vastness  of  the  uni- 
verse, is  altogether  illogical.  Fifthly,  that  astronomical  dis- 
covery has  nearly  reached  its  limits.  Sixthly,  that  the  astron- 
omy of  man's  soul  is  infinitely  grander  than  that  of  the  starry 
heavens,  and  is  but  distantly  related  to  it ;  and,  finally,  that 
there  is  no  reason  to  believe  that  death  and  the  immortality 
which  lie  beyond,  will  allow  us  to  remain  in  those  material  re- 
gions of  which  the  stars  are  the  shining  summits.  We  hope 
for  our  readers'  indulgence  as  we  try  to  explain  more  fully 
what  we  mean. 

First.  We  hear  astronomers  often  speaking  of  those  "  In- 
finities," those  "  Immensities ;  "  words  which,  though  used 
sometimes  rhetorically,  are  always  fitted  to  give  a  false  impres- 
sion to  the  general  mind.  The  universe  is  not  infinite.  As  well 
say  of  a  drop  of  water  that  it  is  infinite,  as  that  a  universe  is. 
The  vastest  and  most  complicated  firmament  is  not  one  step 
nearer  the  abstract  and  absolute  idea  of  Infinity,  than  is  a 
curled  shaving  in  a  joiner's  shop.  The  infinite  aspect  the  Cre- 
ation assumes  is  a  mere  illusion  of  our  eye,  the  dimness  of  a 
weak  and  bounded  vision.  The  universe  is  just  the  multipli- 
cation of  a  sand-grain  or  fire-particle,  and  by  multiplying  the 
finite,  how  can  we  reach  the  infinite  ?  Who  can,  by  searching, 
find  out  God  ?  "  To  an  inconceivably  superior  being,"  says  Cole- 
ridge, "  the  whole  fabric  of  Creation  may  appear  as  oneplain, 
the  distance  between  stars  and  systems  seeming  to  him  but  as 
that  between  particles  of  earth  to  us;"  say,  rather,  it  is  high- 
ly probable  that  this  vast  universe  seems  to  God  but  as  one 
distinctly  rounded  pea,  swimming  on  the  viewless  ocean  of  that 


110  A    CONSTELLATION    OF    SACRKD    AVTHOKS. 


true  Infinite  which  is  "higher  than  heaven,  deeper  than  hell, 
longer  than  the  earth,  and  broader  than  the  sea." 

"  A  metaphysical  difficulty,"  says  Isaac  Taylor  (if  we  need 
clench  a  statement  so  obvious  by  authority),  "prevents  us 
from  ever  regarding  the  material  universe  as  infinite."  And 
if  not  infinite,  what  is  it  but  an  elongation  and  fiery  exaggera- 
tion of  any  boy-bubble  blown  on  the  streets?  Away,  then, 
with  the  words  which  sound  much,  and  mean  nothing,  of  "  in- 
finity" and  "  immensity,"  applied  to  that  mere  scaffolding  to 
the  eternal  and  inner  fabric,  which  is  all  our  earthly  eyes  or 
telescopes  now  or  ever  can  possibly  behold  ! 

Secondly.  Those  enormous  discoveries  of  the  Newtonian 
and  Herschellian  heavens  have  not  really  told  us  anything 
new  in  reference  to  the  great  mystery  of  man — of  his  being, 
history,  destiny,  or  relation  to  God.  The}7  have  simply  trans- 
ferred and  magnified  the  difficulties  by  which  we  are  environed 
on  this  isle  of  earth.  They  have  not,  hitherto,  shed  one  beam 
of  light  on  any  moral  theme.  It  is,  as  yet,  utterly  uncertain, 
for  all  the  stars  can  teach  us,  whether  the  universe  beyond  our 
globe  be  peopled  or  not ;  on  the  moral  state  of  their  popula- 
tions (if  populations  there  be)  the  sky,  however  strictly  ques- 
tioned or  cross-questioned,  remains  quite  silent.  In  fact,  a 
large  crowd  of  silent  human  faces,  looking  up  towards  an  un- 
common phenomenon  in  the  heavens,  reflect  as  much  light  up 
on  it,  as  do  the  stars  down  upon  the  anomalous  and  awful 
condition  of  the  human  family.  Blank  ignorance,  blind 
astonishment,  or  helpless  pity,  are  all  the  feelings  with  which 
even  imagination  can  invest  their  still,  persevering,  yet  solemn 
gaze.  Foster,  in  one  of  his  journals,  seems  rather  to  rejoice 
in  the  notion  that  they  are  made  oifire  ;  because  in  this  there 
is  one  link  connecting  us  with  the  remotest  luminaries  of  hea- 
ven. Some  philosophers  doubt,  we  believe,  if  this  be  a  fact  ; 
but,  at  all  events,  we  wonder  that  he  did  not  see,  on  his  own 
showing,  and  in  accordance  with  his  own  gloomy  notions,  that 
the  universe  might  bo  literally  called  one  vast  hell ;  a  "burn- 
ing fiery  furnace,"  to  be  quenched  only  in  the  final  extinction 
of  all  things.  If  the  stars  are  fire,  it  may  be  a  fire  in  which 
all  the  earths  and  alkalis  around  them  are  slowly,  but  certain- 
ly, to  be  consumed.  And  thus  the  great  mirror  of  the  mid- 
night heavens  becomes  rather  a  reflector  of  the  austere  purposes 


CHALMERS.  1  1  1 


of  the  Divine  Destructiveness,  than  of  the  prosperous  caieer  of 
even  regenerated  man.  In  fact,  we  humbly  conceive  that  the 
discovery  of  a  new  family  of  animalcule,  or  of  a  new  gallery 
of  minerals,  would  cast  as  much  light  upon  human  nature  and 
history  as  the  revelation  of  firmaments  upon  firmaments  of 
what  seems  distant  and  inscrutable  flame. 

Thirdly.  The  telescope,  as  a  mental  and  magical  instru- 
ment, has  been  overrated.  The  imagination  of  a  poet,  in  a 
single  dream,  has  often  immeasurably  outrun  all  its  revelations. 
What  has  it  told  us,  after  all,  but  that  our  sun,  a  bright  and 
burning  point,  has  innumerable  duplicates  throughout  space, 
and  that  these  duplicates,  by  their  position  near  each  other, 
have  assumed  certain  shapes,  which  are,  however,  perpetually 
shifting  and  changing,  like  the  clouds  on  a  windy  day,  in  pro- 
portion to  the  power  of  the  instrument  which  surveys  them  ? 
In  truth,  there  are  views  of  astronomy  in  Addison's  "  Specta- 
tor," a  century  old,  as  sublime  as  any  written  since.  And 
what  have  the  two  Herschells,  or  Arago,  or  Nichol,  done  to 
answer  the  questions — What  is  a  sun,  what  is  a  system,  what 
is  a  comet,  what  is  a  firmament,  or  what  is  the  one  "  fiery 
particle"  which  pervades  and  forms,  it  is  said,  by  expansion 
the  whole  ?  It  is  as  if  a  man,  questioned  as  to  the  essence  of 
the  matter  constituting  an  umbrella,  were  to  reply  by  unfurl- 
ing it,  and  deeming  that,  thus  the  query  was  answered.  The 
telescope,  in  one  word,  has  only  broadened  the  periphery  of 
our  view,  but  has  not  admitted  us  really  into  one  of  the  se- 
crets of  heaven  ;  the  mystery  of  the  atom  has  merely  been 
transferred,  unsolved,  to  that  of  the  Star-universe. 

Fourthly.  The  inference  of  the  insignificance  of  man,  from 
the  magnitude  of  the  Creation,  as  we  have  already  hinted,  is 
miserably  illogical.  A  man,  in  reality,  is  as  much  overborne 
by  the  size  of  a  hill  or  a  house,  as  by  that  of  the  Herschellian 
skies.  A  mountain  is  a  noble  object;  but  why  ?  because  man 
sees  it  and  sheds  the  meaning  and  the  glory  of  his  own  soul 
over  it.  A  sun  is  but  a  burnished  breastplate  till  the  same 
process  passes  over  it,  and  man  has  said  of  it,  in  reverent  imi- 
tation of  the  Demiurgic  Artist,  "  It  is  very  good."  The  stars 
too,  must  all  wait  in  the  ante-chamber  of  the  human  soul  to 
receive  their  homage,  to  be  told  of  their  numbers,  and  to  lis- 
ten to  their  names.  Even  although  these  splendid  bodies 


112  A    CONSTELLATION    OF    SACRED    AUTHORS. 


were  peopled,  man  has  no  evidence  that  those  beings  are 
greater  or  purer  than  himself,  any  more  than  he  has  evidence 
that  snow  and  torrid  sunshine,  anxiety,  misery,  and  death,  are 
confined  to  his  sphere ;  a  sphere  which,  dark,  torn,  and  rup- 
tured, to  his  eye,  is  (as  the  author  of  "  Festus  "  hath  it) 
"  shining  fair,  whole,  and  spotless,"  a  "  living  well  of  light," 
to  spectators  in  the  far-off  ether  What,  in  fact,  are  the  in- 
creasing and  receding  firmaments  of  space,  but  the  steps  of  a 
ladder  on  which  man  is  climbing  every  year,  without  coming 
nearer  to  his  great  ultimate  inheritance — Space,  Eternity,  and 
God. 

Fifthly.  It  is  clear  to  us  that  astronomical  discovery  has 
nearly  reached  its  limit.  That  God  designed  to  it  a  distinct 
and  not  distant  period,  seems  plain  from  the  separation  which 
is  effected  of  other  worlds  from  ours  by  the  nature  of  the  hu- 
man eye,  by  distance,  and  by  that  dancing  phenomenon  in  the 
objects  which  we  are  told  increases  with  the  power  of  the  tele- 
scope, and  which  makes  the  stars  reel  like  drunkards,  instead 
of  sitting  sober  before  the  calm  pictorial  power  of  the  instru- 
ment. All  our  recent  cosmogonies,  too,  such  as  the  nebular 
hypothesis,  have  been  utterly  exploded.  And  it  is  very  cu- 
rious how  the  world  nearest  us  (the  moon)  seems  the  most  per- 
verse and  inscrutable  of  all  the  heavenly  puzzles ;  and  it  seems 
strange  to  us  how,  having  looked  so  long  on  the  absurdities 
of  our  world,  and  particularly  on  the  theories  propounded 
about  itself,  it  has  hitherto  forborne  to  laugh !  By  and  by, 
we  suspect,  man,  even  with  Lord  Rosse's  telescope  in  his 
hand,  may  be  seen  stretching  over  the  great  gulf  a  baffled  hand, 
and  foot,  and  eye,  baffled  because  he  has  reached  at  last  the 
limits  of  his  earthly  platform. 

Sixthly.  But  why  should  he,  therefore,  repine,  or  sit  down 
and  weep  ?  "  Can  his  own  soul  afford  no  scope  ?"  Are  there 
no  stars  within,  no  firmaments  of  central,  yet  celestial,  fire  ? 
Astronomy  is  doubtless  a  magnificent  study,  but  the  mind 
which  has  made  the  telescope  as  an  assistant  eye  for  its  inves- 
tigation, is  surely  as  worthy  of  investigation,  nay,  far  more  so. 
What  comet  so  wonderful  as  the  human  will  ?  What  sun  so 
warm  and  mysterious  as  the  human  heart  ?  \\  hat  double- 
orbed  Gemini  to  be  compared  with  the  twin  eyes  of  man  ? — 
What  firmament  is  like  the  wiry,  waving,  knotted,  intesselated 


DR.   CHALMERS.  113 


and  far-stretchmg  brain,  sending  out  its  nervous  undulations, 
even  as  the  spiral  nebula  sends  forth  its  thin  films  of  suns  ? 
What  conception  of  a  universe,  however  vast  and  complex,  can 
be  named  in  mystery,  with  man — scarce  a  mathematical  point 
in  size,  and  yet  spanning  earth,  measuring  ocean,  analyzing 
the  clouds  and  the  skies  above  him,  poetizing  the  dust  below 
his  feet,  worshipping  God,  and  sending  out  his  careering 
thoughts  into  Eternity,  and  yet,  like  his  progenitor  Adam, 
while  aiming  perpetually  to  be  as  a  God,  as  often  losing  his 
balance,  and  becoming  inferior  to  the  brute  ?  Why  seek  so 
eagerly  to  explore  firmaments,  till  we  have  explored  the  depths 
which  lie  enclosed,  yet  beseechingly  open,  in  our  own  natures  ? 
And  alas  !  no  light  do  all  the  fires  of  all  the  firmaments,  how- 
ever beautifully  concentred  and  condensed  by  the  power  of 
poetical  genius,  cast  upon  the  mystery  of  man's  moral  condi- 
tion, his  nature  as  a  sinner,  or  the  hope  he  has  of  forgiveness 
and  everlasting  life ! 

We  take  leave  of  this  brief  view  of  a  magnificent  theme,  by 
uttering  (seventhly)  what  may  appear  our  most  paradoxical 
assertion — namely,  that  there  is  no  reason  to  believe  that 
death  and  immortality  will  permit  the  emancipated  soul  to  re- 
main amid  these  present  starry  splendors.  However  bright, 
and  even,  at  times,  inviting  they  may  seem,  they  contain  no 
home  for  us  after  we  are  freed  from  these  tabernacles  of  clay. 
We  often  hear  men  talking  as  if,  somehow,  they  went  up,  after 
death,  among  the  heavenly  bodies.  It  were  wrong  in  us  to 
dogmatise  on  any  such  question ;  but  it  seems  more  probable, 
and  more  scriptural,  too,  that  we  pass,  at  death,  amid  a  pure- 
ly spiritual  scenery,  as  well  as  into  a  purely  spiritual  state — 
or,  at  least,  that  the  grosser  phenomena  of  matter  will  be  then 
as  invisible  to  us  as  are  now  the  microscopic  worlds.  This 
conviction  came  upon  us  some  two  years  ago,  with  a  sudden 
and  startling  force,  which  we  felt  more  than  enough  for  our 
own  minds.  Taking  up,  shortly  after,  one  of  the  strange 
reveries  of  poor  Edgar  Poe,  we  were  astonished  to  find  the 
following  language  :  "  At  death,  these  creatures,  enjoying  the 
ultimate  life — immortality,  act  all  things,  and  pass  everywhere 
by  mere  volition — indwelling  not  the  stars,  which  to  us  seem 
the  sole  palpabilities,  and  for  the  accommodation  of  which  we 
blindly  deem  space  created — but  that  SPACE  itself — that  infi- 


114  A    CONSTELLATION    OF    SACKED    AUTHORS. 


r.ity,  of  which  the  true  substantive  vastncss  swallows  up  the 
star  shadows — blotting  them  out  as  nonentities  from  the  per- 
ception of  the  angels."  And  again  :  "  the  stars,  through 
what  we  consider  their  materiality,  escape  the  angelic  sense, 
just  as  the  unparticled  matter  or  space,  through  what  we  con- 
sider its  immateriality,  eludes  the  perception  of  organic  and 
incarnate  beings." 

Inferences  of  much  interest  might  be  drawn  from  these  cur- 
sory remarks.  We  might  infer,  for  instance,  that  there  was, 
and  is,  no  alternative  for  Man — but  Revelation  or  Despair. 
Nature  can,  at  the  utmost,  do  little  for  us,  and  can  tell  us  very 
little.  This  the  highest  of  philosophers  have  ever  felt  (in- 
cluding some  of  the  Alchymists),  and  hence  they  have  tried  to 
qet  behind  nature — and  to  get  so  behind  it  as  to  turn  it  to 
their  will.  In  this  they  have  all  miserably  failed  ;  and  ever 
shall.  One  only  possessed  this  ineffable  secret — one  only  ever 
stood  behind  the  tremendous  veil  of  creation — and  why  ? — 
Because  he  was  originally  divine — because  he  came  from  the 
Excellent  Glory  (which  is,  perhaps,  another  name  for  that 
<(  unparticled  matter,"  that  sublime  reality  of  existence  which 
is  within  all  things),  as  well  as  confirmed  his  power  by  "pri- 
vilege of  virtue."  HE  alone,  even  in  the  days  of  his  flesh,  with 
open  face,  looked  at  the  Glory  of  God ;  and  this  power  he 
gives  already  in  some  measure,  and  shall  yet  more  fully  be- 
stow upon  his  faithful  and  simple-hearted  followers,  that  they, 
too,  may  behold,  as  in  a  glass — mightier  than  the  mirror  of 
all  the  stars — the  inmost  glory  of  the  Lord. 

Once  more,  how  overwhelmingly  grand  the  views  opened  up 
by  such  thoughts  as  these  !  Here  are  new  heavens  and  a  new 
earth.  Here,  in  every  death,  is  a  rehearsal  of  that  scene  in 
which  the  heavens  are  to  flee  away.  The  sight  of  those  fair, 
yet  terrible  and  tantalizing  heavens  of  ours  is  at  the  death- 
moment  of  every  Christian  exchanged  for  that  of  spiritual 
scenes,  which  no  eye  hath  seen,  and  no  ear  heard.  That  ma- 
jestic universe,  which  was  the  nursery  of  the  budding  soul, 
dissolves  like  a  dream,  and  that  soul  is  admitted  within  the 
veil  of  the  unseen,  and  begins  to  behold  matter  as  it  is,  space 
as  it  is,  GOD  as  he  is,  and  to  know  now  what  is  the  meaning  of  the 
words,  "  the  \\ghtinaccessible  and  full  of  glory."  Nor  will 
the  soul,  thus  introduced,  sigh  for  the  strange  and  fiery  "star- 


DR.  CHALMERS.  115 


shadows"  which  surrounded  its  infancy.  There  was  much  in 
them  that  was  beautiful ;  but  there  was  much  also  that  was 
fearful,  perplexing,  and  sad.  But  here,  in  this  spirit-land,  the 
sun  of  truth  shines.  That  city  has  no  need  of  the  sun  nor  of 
the  moon  to  shine  on  it.  The  mind  shall  there  begin  to  see 
without  cloud,  or  shadow,  or  reflected  radiance,  Knowledge, 
Essence,  Eternity,  GOD,  and  shall  look  back  upon  the  stars  as 
but  the  bright  toys  of  its  nursery,  childish  things  it  has  sur- 
mounted and  put  away.  Further  we  dare  not  penetrate — here 
let  the  curtain  drop — but  let  it  drop  to  the  music  of  one 
solemn  word,  from  the  only  Book  which  has  given  us  authen- 
tic and  commanding  tidings  from  that  inner  world.  "  Seeing, 
therefore,  that  all  these  things  shall  be  dissolved,  what  man- 
ner of  persons  ought  we  to  be  in  all  holy  conversation  and 
godliness  ?'' 


u!  §efo  I  «k 

^— ^  ^4*0 


KO.  I.-SYDNEY  YENDYS. 

THIS  book*  we  hesitate  not  to  pronounce  the  richest  volume 
of  recent  poetry  next  to  "  Festus."  It  is  a  "wilderness"  of 
thought — a  sea  of  towering  imagery  and  surging  passion. 
Usually  a  man's  first  book  is  his  richest,  containing,  as  it  gen- 
erally does,  all  the  good  things  which  had  been  accumulating 
in  his  portfolio  for  years  before  he  published.  But  while 
"  The  Roman  "  was  full  of  beauties,  "  Balder  "  is  overflowing, 
and  the  beauties,  we  think,  are  of  a  rarer  and  profounder  sort. 
There  was  much  poetry  in  "  The  Roman,"  but  there  was  more 
rhetoric.  Indeed,  many  of  the  author's  detractors,  while 
granting  him  powers  of  splendid  eloquence,  denied  him  the 
possession  of  the  purely  poetic  element.  "  Balder  "  must,  un- 
questionably, put  these  to  silence,  and  convince  all  worth  con- 
vincing, that  Yendys  is  intensely  and  transcendently  a  poet. 

In  two  things  only  does  "  Balder"  yield  to  "The  Roman." 
It  has,  as  a  story,  little  interest,  being  decidedly  subjective 
rather  than  objective ;  and,  secondly,  its  writing  is  not,  as  a 
whole,  so  clear.  In  "  The  Roman,"  he  was  almost  always 
distinctly,  dazzlingly  clear.  The  Monk  was  never  in  a  mist 
for  a  moment ;  but  Balder,  as  he  has  a  Norse  name,  not  un- 
frequently  speaks  or  bellows  from  the  centre  of  northern  dark- 
ness. We  speak,  we  must  say,  however,  after  only  one  read- 
ing; perhaps  a  second  may  serve  to  clear  up  a  good  deal  that 
Keems  obscure  and  chaotic. 

*  "  Balder."     By  the  author  of  "  The  Roman.' 


SYDNEY    YENDYS.  117 


The  object  of  the  poet  is  to  show  that  natural  goodness, 
without  the  Divine  guidance,  is  unable  to  conduct  even  the 
loftiest  of  the  race  to  any  issue  but  misery  and  despair.  This 
he  does  in  the  story  of  Balder — a  man  of  vast  intelligence, 
and  aspiring  to  universal  intellectual  power — who,  partly 
through  the  illness  of  his  wife,  represented  as  the  most  amia- 
ble of  women,  and  partly  through  his  own  unsatisfied  longings 
of  soul,  is  reduced  to  absolute  wretchedness,  and  is  left  sacri- 
ficing her  life  to  his  disquietude  and  baffled  ambition.  The 
poem  has  one  or  two  interlocutors  besides  Balder  and  Amy, 
but  consists  principally  of  soliloquies  uttered  and  songs  sung 
by  these  two  in  alternate  scenes,  and  has  very  little  dramatic 
interest.  It  is  entitled  "  Balder,  Part  First;"  a  title  which 
pretty  broadly  hints  that  a  second  poem — with  a  far  sublimer 
argument  (the  inevitable  sequel  of  the  former),  showing  how, 
since  natural  goodness  fails  in  reforming  the  world,  or  making 
any  man  happy,  Divine  goodness  must  be  expected  to  perform 
the  work — may  be  looked  for. 

We  pass  from  the  general  argument  and  bearing  of  the 
poem,  to  speak  more  in  detail  of  its  special  merits  and  defects. 
The  great  merit  of  the  book,  as  we  have  already  hinted,  is  its 
Australian  wealth  of  thought  and  imagery.  Bailey  must  look 
after  his  laurels ;  Tennyson,  Smith,  and  Bigg  are  all  in  this 
one  quality  eclipsed  by  Yendys.  Nor  are  the  pieces  of  gold 
small  and  of  little  value ;  many  of  them  are  large  nuggets — 
more  precious  than  they  are  sparkling.  Here,  for  instance,  is 
a  cluster  of  noble  similitudes,  reminding  you  of  Jeremy  Tay- 
lor's thick  rushing  "  So  have  I  seen  :  " — 

"  Nature  from  my  birth 
Confess'd  me,  as  one  who  in  a  multitude 
Confesseth  her  beloved,  and  makes  no  sign ; 
Or  as  one  all  unzoned  in  her  deep  haunts, 
If  her  true  love  come  on  her  unaware, 
Hastes  not  to  hide  her  breast,  nor  is  afraid  ; 
Or  as  a  mother,  'mid  her  sons,  displays 
The  arms  their  glorious  father  wore,  and,  kind, 
In  silence,  with  discerning  love  commits 
Some  lesser  danger  to  each  younger  hand, 
But  to  the  conscious  eldest  of  the  house 
The  naked  sword ;  or  as  a  sage,  amid 
His  pupils  in  the  peopled  portico, 
Where  all  stand  equal,  gives  no  preoedenca 
But  by  intercalated  look  and  word 


118  A  CLUSTEU  OF  NEW  POETS. 


Of  equal  seeming,  wise  but  to  the  wise, 
Denotes  the  favor'd  scholar  from  the  crowd ; 
Or  as  the  keeper  of  the  palace-gate 
Denies  the  gorgeous  stranger,  and  his  pomp 
Of  gold,  but  at  a  glance,  although  he  come 
In  fashion  as  a  commoner,  unstarr'd, 
Lets  the  prince  pass." 

By  what  a  strong,  rough,  daring  figure  does  Balder  describe 
the  elements  of  his  power  : — 

"  Thought,  Labor,  Patience, 
And  a  strong  Will,  that,  being  set  to  boil 
The  broth  of  Hecate,  would  shred  hisjlesh 
Into  tlie  caldron,  and  stir  deep,  with,  arms 
Flay'd  to  the  seething  bone,  ere  there  default 
,     One  tittlefrom,  the  spell — these  should  not  strive 
In  vain!" 

"  The  repose 

Of  Beauty — where  she  lieth  bright  and  still 
As  some  spent  angel,  dead-asleep  in  light 
On  the  most  heavenward  top  of  all  this  world, 
Wing-weary.'' 

Of  what  follows  death  he  says — 

"  Thejirst,  last  secret  all  men  hear,  and  none 
Betray." 

"  My  hand  shakes  ; 

But  with  the  trembling  eagerness  of  him 
Who  buys  an  Indian  kingdom  with  a  bead." 

"  Fancy,  like  the  image  that  our  boors 
Set  by  their  kine,  doth  milk  her  of  her  tears, 
And  loose  the  terrible  unsolved  distress 
Of  tumid  Nature." 

"  Men  of  drug  and  scalpel  still  are  men. 
I  call  them  the  gnomes 
Of  science,  miners  who  scarce  see  the  light, 
Working  within  the  bowels  of  the  world 
Of  beauty." 

"  Love 
Makes  us  all  poets " 

"  From  the  mount 

Of  high  transfiguration  you  come  down 
Into  your  common  lifetime,  as  the  diver 
Breathes  upper  air  a  moment  ere  he  plunge, 
And  by  mere  virtue  of  that  moment,  lives 
In  breathless  deeps,  and  dark.    We  poets  live 
Upon  the  height,  saying,  as  one  of  old, 
'  Let  us  make  tabernacles  :  it  is  good 
To  be  here-'  ' 


SYDNEY    YEJJDYS.  119 


"Dauntless  Angelo, 

Who  drew  the  Judgment,  in  some  daring  hope 
That,  seeing  it,  the  gods  could  not  depart 
From  so  divine  a  pattern." 

"  Sad  .Alighieri,  like  a  waning  moon 
Setting  in  storm  behind  a  grove  of  bays." 

The  descriptions  which  follow,  in  pages  91  and  £2 — of  Mil- 
ton and  Shakspeare — are  very  eloquent,  but  not,  it  appears  to 
us,  very  characteristic.  They  are  splendid  evasions  of  their 
subjects.  Reading  Milton  is  not  like  swimming  the  Alps,  as 
an  ocean  sinking  and  swelling  with  the  billows;  it  is  rather 
like  trying  to  fly  to  heaven,  side  by  side  with  an  angel  who  is 
at  full  speed,  and  does  not  even  see  his  companion — so  eagerly 
is  he  straining  at  the  glorious  goal  which  is  fixing  his  eye,  and 
from  afar  flushing  his  cheek.  Nor  do  we  much  admire  this  : — 

"  Either  his  muse 

Was  the  recording  angel,  or  that  hand 
Cherubic  which  fills  up  the  Book  of  Life, 
Caught  what  the  last  relaxing  gripe  let  fall 
By  a  death-bed  at  Stratford,  and  henceforth 
Holds  Shakspeare's  pen.* 

No,  no,  dear  Sydney  Yendys,  Shakspeare  was  no  cherub, 
or  seraph  either;  he  was  decidedly  an  "earth  spirit,"  or 
rather,  he  was  just  honest,  play-acting,  ale-drinking  Will  of 
Stratford,  with  the  most  marvellous  daguerreotypic  brow  that 
ever  man  possessed,  and  with  an  immense  fancy,  imagination, 
and  subtle,  untrained  intellect  besides.  He  knew  well  a 
"Book  of  Life;"  but  it  was  not  "the  Lamb's!" — it  was  the 
book  of  the  wondrous,  living,  loving,  hating,  maddening, 
laughing,  weeping  heart  of  man.  Call  him  rather  a  diver 
than  a  cherub,  or,  better  still,  with  Hazlitt  and  Scott,  compare 
him  to  that  magician  in  the  eastern  tale  who  had  the  power  of 
shooting  his  soul  into  all  other  souls  and  bodies,  and  of  look- 
ing at  the  universe  through  all  human  eyes.  We  are,  by  this 
comparison  of  Shakspeare  to  an  angel,  irresistibly  reminded  of 
Michael  Lambourne  in  "  Kenilworth,"  who,  after  in  vain  try- 
ing to  enact  Arion,  at  last  tears  off  his  vizard,  and  cries 
"  Cog's  bones  !"  He  was  none  of  Arion,  or  Orion  either,  but 
honest  Mike  Lambourne,  that  had  been  drinking  Her  Majes- 
ty's health  from  morning  till  midnight.  Lambourne  was  just 


120  A    CLUSTER    OF    NEW    POETS. 


as  like  Orion,  or  his  namesake  the  archangel  Michael,  as  Shaks- 
peare  like  a  cherubic  recorder. 

Now  for  another  cluster  of  minor,  but  exquisite  beauties 
ere  we  come  to  give  two  or  three  superb  passages  : — 

"  Sere  leaf,  that  quiverest  through  the  sad-still  air ; 
Sere  leaf,  that  waverest  down  the  sluggish  wind ; 
Sere  leaf,  that  whirlest  on  the  autumn  gust, 
Free  in  the  ghastly  anarchy  of  death  : 
The  sudden  gust  that,  like  a  headsman  wild, 
TJplifteth  beauty  by  her  golden  hair, 
To  show  the  world  that  she  is  dead  indeed." 

"  The  bare  hill  top 

Shines  near  above  us  ;  I  feel  like  a  child 
Nursed  on  his  grandsire's  knee,  that  longs  to  stroke 
The  bald  bright  forehead ;  shall  we  climb  7" 

"  She  look'd  in  her  surprise 
As  when  the  Evening  Star,  ta'en  unaware, 
\Yhilefearless  she  pursues  across  the  Heaven 
Her  Lover- Sun,  and  on  a  sudden  stands 
Confest  in  the  pursuit,  before  a  world 
Upgazing,  in  her  maiden  innocence 
Disarms  us,  and  so  looks,  that  she  becomes 
A  worship  evermore." 

"  The  order'd  pomp  and  sacred  dance  of  things." 

"  This  is  that  same  hour 
That  I  have  seen  before  me  as  a  star 
Seen  from  a  rushing  comet  through  the  black 
And  forward  night,  which  orbs,  and  orbs,  and  orbs, 
Till  that  which  was  a  shining  spot  in  space 
Flames  out  between  us  and  the  universe, 
And  burns  the  heavens  with  glory." 

We  quoted  his  description  of  Night  once  before  from  MS. 
We  give  it  again,  however  : — 

"  And  lo  !  the  last  strange  sister,  but  though  last, 
Elder  and  haught,  called  Night  on  earth,  in  heaven 
Nameless,  for  in  her  far  youth  she  was  given, 
Pale  as  she  is,  to  pride,  and  did  bedeck 
Her  bosom  with  innumerable  gems. 
And  God,  He  said,  '  Let  no  man  look  on  her 
For  ever ;'  and,  begirt  with  this  strong  spell, 
The  Moon  in  her  wan  hand,  she  wanders  forth, 
Seeking  for  some  one  to  behold  her  beauty ; 
And  whersoe'er  she  cometh,  eyelids  close. 
And  the  world  sleeps." 

This  description  has  been  differently  estimated.    Some  have 
called  it  magnificent,  and  others  fantastic  ;  some  a  matchless 


SYDNEY    YENDYS.  121 


gem,  and  others  a  colossal  conceit.  But  wo  think  there  can 
be  but  one  opinion  about  the  following  picture  of  Evening. 
It  seems  to  us  as  exquisitely  beautiful  as  anything  in  Spenser, 
Wordsworth,  or  Shelly  : — 

"  And  sccst  thou  her  who  kneeletk  clad  in  gold 
And  purple,  with  ajlush  upon  her  cheek, 
And  upturn' d  eyes,  full  of  the  love  and  sorrow 
Of  other  worlds  ?     'Tis  said,  that  when  the  sons 
Of  God  did  walk  the  earth,  she  loved  a  star." 

Here  the  description  should  have  stopped,  and  here  we  stop 
it,  wishing  that  the  author  had.  But  it  is  curious  and  charac- 
teristic, not  so  much  of  the  genius  as  of  the  temperament  (or 
rather  of  bodily  sufferings  influencing  that  temperament)  of 
this  gifted  poet,  that  he  often  sinks  and  falls  on  the  very 
threshold  of  perfection.  Another  word,  and  all  were  gained, 
to  the  very  measure  and  stature  of  Miltonic  excellence;  but 
the  word  comes  not,  or  the  wrong  word  comes  instead  ;  and  as 
Yendys,  like  the  tiger,  takes  no  second  spring,  the  whole  effect 
is  often  lost.  We  notice  the  same  in  Shelley,  Keats,  and 
especially  in  Leigh  Hunt,  who  has  made  and  spoiled  many  of 
the  finest  poetic  pictures  in  the  world.  Wordsworth,  Tenny- 
son, and  Alexander  Smith,  are  signal  in  this>  that  all  their 
set  descriptions  and  pet  passages  are  finished  to  the  last  trem- 
bling articulation ;  complete  even  to  a  comma.  Yendys  has, 
perhaps,  superior,  or  equal  genius;  he  has  also  an  equal  will 
and  desire  to  elaborate ;  but,  alas !  while  the  spirit  is  always 
willing,  the  flesh  is  often  weak. 

Speaking  of  the  Resurrection  to  Amy,  Balder  says : — 

"  My  childhood's  dream.    Is  it  a  dream  ?    For  thou 
Art  such  a  thing  as  one  might  think  to  see 
Upon  a  footstone,  sitting  in  the  sun, 
Beside  a  broken  grave." 

"  I  have  been  lika 

A  prophet  fallen  on  his  prostrate  face 
Upon  the  hill  of  fire." 

Such  is  the  prophet  above.  Mark  him  now,  as  he  cornea 
down  to  mankind  : — 

"In  the  form 

Of  manhood  I  will  get  me  down  to  man ! 
As  one  goes  down  from  Alpine  top  with  snows 
Upon  his  head,  Ij  who  have  stood  so  long 


122  A    CLUSTER    OF    NEW    POETS. 


On  other  Alps,  will  go  down  to  my  race, 
Snow'd  on  with  somewhat  out  of  Divine  air; 
And  merely  walking  through  them  with  a  step 
God-like  to  music,  like  the  golden  sound 
Of  Phebus'  shoulder' d  arrows,  I  will  shake 
The  laden  manna  round  me  as  I  shake 
Dews  from  this  morning  tree." 

He  has,  two  or  three  pages  after  this,  a  strange  effusion, 
called  the  "  Song  of  the  Sun,"  which  we  predict  shall  divide 
opinion  still  more  than  his  "  Night."  Some  will  call  it 
worthy  of  Groethe;  others  will  call  it  a  forced  extravaganza, 
a  half-frenzied  imitation  of  Shelley's  "  Cloud."  We  incline 
to  a  somewhat  intermediate  notion.  At  the  first  reading,  it 
seemed  to  us  to  bear  a  suspicious  resemblance,  not  to  Shelley's 
"  Cloud,"  but  to  that  tissue  of  noisy  nonsense  (where,  as  there 
was  no  reason,  there  ought  at  least  to  have  been  rhyme),  War- 
ren's "  Lily  and  the  Bee."  Hear  this,  for  instance.  Mark,  it 
is  Sol  that  speaks : — 

"Love,  love,  love,  how  beautiful,  oh  love! 
Art  thou  well-awaken' d,  little  flower  1 
Are  thine  eyelids  open,  little  flower  ? 
Are  they  cool  with  dew,  oh  little  flower  ? 

Ringdove,  Ringdove, 
This  is  my  golden  finger  ; 
Between  the  upper  branches  of  the  pine 
Come  forth,  come  forth,  and  sing  unto  my  day." 

Who  will  encore  the  sun  in  such  ditties  as  these  ?  But  he 
has  some  more  vigorous  strains,  worthy  almost  of  that  voice 
wherewith  Goethe,  in  his  "  Prologue  to  Faust,"  has  repre- 
sented him  making  "  music  to  the  spheres  :" — 

"  I  will  spend  day  among  you  like  a  king ! 
Tour  water  shall  be  wine  because  I  reign  ! 
Arise,  my  hand  is  open,  it  is  day ! 
Rise !  as  men  strike  a  bell,  and  make  it  music, 
So  have  I  struck  the  earth,  and  made  it  day. 
As  one  blows  a  trumpet  through  the  valleys, 
So  from  my  golden  trumpet  I  blow  day. 
White-fa vor'd  day  is  sailing  on  the  sea, 
And,  like  a  sudden  harvest  in  the  land, 
The  windy  land  is  leaving  gold  with  day  ! 

I  have  done  my  task  ; 

Do  yours.    And  what  is  this  that  I  have  given, 
And  wherefore  1    Look  ye  to  it !     As  ye  can, 
Be  wise  and  foolish  to  the  end.    For  me, 
I  under  all  heavens  go  forth,  praising  God." 


SYDNEY    YENDl'S.  123 


Well  sung,  old  Baal !  Thou  hast  become  a  kind  of  Chris- 
tian in  these  latter  days.  But  we  have  seen  a  far  stronger, 
less  mystic,  and  clearer  song  attributed  to  thy  lips  before, 
although  Yendys  has  not.  His,  as  a  whole,  is  not  worthy 
either  of  thee  or  himself! 

But  what  beautiful  words  are  these  about  the  sun's  darling 
— Summer — immediately  below  this  Sun-song  ? 

Alas !  that  one 

Should  use  the  days  of  summer  but  to  live, 
And  breathe  but  as  the  needful  element 
The  strange,  superfluous  glory  of  the  air  ! 
Nor  rather  stand  apart  in  awe  beside 
Th'  untouch'd  Time,  and  saying  o'er  and  o'er, 
In  love  and  wonder,  '  These  are  summer-days.'  " 

We  quote  but  one  more  of  these  random  and  ransomless 
gems : — 

"  The  Sublime  and  beautiful, 
Eternal  twins,  one  dark,  one  fair ; 
She  leaning  on  her  grand  heroic  brother, 
As  in  a  picture  of  some  old  romaunt." 

We  promised  next  to  quote  one  or  two  longer  passages. 
We  wish  we  had  room  for  all  the  description  of  Chamouni, 
which,  like  the  scene,  is  unapproachable — the  most  Miltonic 
strain  since  Milton — and  this,  because  it  accomplishes  its 
sublime  effects  merely  by  sublime  thought  and  image,  almost 
disdaining  aught  but  simple  and  colloquial  words.  Yet  we 
must  give  a  few  scattered  stones  from  this  new  Alp  in  descrip- 
tive literature — this,  as  yet,  the  masterpiece  of  its  author's 
genius  : — 

"  Chamouni,  'mid  sternest  Alps, 
The  gentlest  valley  ;  bright  meandering  track 
Of  summer,  when  she  winds  among  the  snows 
From  land  to  land.    Behold  its  fairest  field 
Beneath  the  bold-scarr'd  forehead  of  the  hills 
Low  lying,  like  a  heart  of  sweet  desires, 
Pulsing  all  day  a  living  beauty  deep 
Into  the  sullen  secrets  of  the  rocks, 
Tender  as  Love  amid  the  Destinies 
And  Terrors ;  whereabout  the  great  heights  stand, 
Down-gazing,  like  a  solemn  company 
Of  grey  heads  met  together  to  look  back 
Upon  a  far-fond  memory  of  youth." 

"  There  being  old 
All  days  and  years  they  maunder  on  their  thrones 


124  A  CLUSTER.  OF  NEW  POETS. 


Mountainous  mutterings,  or  through  the  vale 

Roll  the  long  roar  from  startled  side  to  side, 

When  whoso,  lifting  up  his  sudden  voice 

A  moment,  speaketh  of  his  meditation, 

And  thinks  again.    There  shalt  thou  learn  to  stand 

One  in  that  company,  and  to  commune 

With  them,  saying,  'Thou,  oh  Alp,  and  thou  and  thou, 

And  I.'     Nathless,  proud  equal,  look  thou  take 

Heed  of  thy  peer,  lest  he  perceive  thee  not-  - 

Lest  the  wind  blow  his  garment,  and  the  hem 

Crush  thee,  or  lest  he  stir,  and  the  mere  dust 

In  the  eternal  folds  bury  thee  quick." 

Coleridge,  in  his  "  Hymn  to  Mont  Blanc" — a  hymn,  of 
which  it  is  the  highest  praise  to  say  that  it  is  equal  to  tho 
subject,  to  Thomson's  hymn  at  the  end  of  "  The  Seasons,"  to 
Milton's  hymn  put  into  the  mouth  of  our  first  parents,  and  to 
this  grand  effusion  of  Sydney  Yendys — says, 

"  Torrents,  methinks,  that  heard  a  mighty  voice, 

And  straight  stood  still, 
Motionless  torrents — silent  cataracts!" 

Balder  has  thus  nobly  expanded,  if  he  ever  (which  we  doubt) 
thought  of  the  Coleridgean  image  : — 

"  The  ocean  of  a  frozen  world ; 
A  marble  storm  in  monumental  rage  ; 
Passion  at  nought,  and  strength  still  strong  in  vain — 
A  wrestling  giant,  spell-bound,  but  not  dead, 
As  though  the  universal  deluge  pass'd 
These  confines,  and  when  forty  days  were  o'er, 
Knew  the  set  time  obedient,  and  arose 
In  haste.     But  Winter  lifted  up  his  hand, 
And  stayed  the  everlasting  sign,  which  strives 
For  ever  to  return.     Cold  crested  tides, 
And  cataracts  more  white  than  wintry  foam, 
Eternally  in  act  of  the  great  leap 
That  never  may  be  ta'en — these  fill  the  gorge, 
And  rear  upon  the  steep  uplifted  waves 
Immovable,  that  proudly  feign  to  go." 

There  follow  a  number  of  verses,  striving  like  ante-natal 
ghosts  for  an  incarnation  worthy  of  their  grandeur,  but  not  so 
clearly  representing  the  magnificent  idea  in  the  author's  mind 
to  ordinary  readers  as  we  might  have  wished.  Yet  all  this 
dim  gulf  of  thought  and  image  is  radiant,  here  and  there,  with 
poetry.  But  how  finely  this  passage  sweetens  and  softens  the 
grandeur  before  and  after  : — 


SYDNEY    YENDYS.  125 


"  Here,  in  the  lowest  vale, 
Sit  we  beside  the  torrent,  till  the  goats 
Come  tinkling  home  at  eve,  with  pastoral  horn, 
Slow  down  the  winding  way,  plucking  sweet  grass 
Amid  the  yellow  pansies  and  harebells  blue. 

The  milk  is  warm, 

The  cakes  are  brown ; 

The  flax  is  spun, 

The  kine  are  dry ; 

The  bed  is  laid, 

The  children  sleep ; 

Come,  husband,  come 

To  home  and  me. 

So  sings  the  mother  as  she  milks  within 
The  chalet  near  thee,  singing  so  for  him 
Whom  every  morn  she  sendeth  forth  alone 
Into  the  waste  of  mountains,  to  return 
At  close  of  day,  like  a  returning  soul 
Out  of  the  Infinite  :  lost  in  the  whirl 
Of  clanging  systems,  and  the  wilderness 
Of  all  things,  but  to  one  remember' d  tryste, 
One  human  heart,  and  unforgotten  cell, 
True  in  its  ceaseless  self,  and  in  its  time 
Eestored." 

Our  readers  will  notice,  in  these  and  the  foregoing  extracts, 
a  vast  improvement  over  "  The  Roman"  in  the  music  of  the 
versification.  The  verse  of  "  The  Roman  "  was  constructed 
too  much  on  the  model  of  Byron,  who  often  closes  and  begins 
his  lines  with  expletives  and  weak  words.  The  verse  of  Yen- 
dys  is  much  more  Miltonic.  We  give,  as  a  specimen  of  this, 
and  as  one  of  the  finest  passages  in  the  poem,  the  following 
description  of  Morn  : — 

"  Lo,  Morn, 

When  she  stood  forth  at  universal  prime, 
The  angels  shouted,  and  the  dews  of  joy 
Stood  in  the  eyes  of  earth.    While  here  she  reign" d, 
Adam  and  Eve  were  full  of  orisons, 
And  could  not  sin  ;  and  so  she  won  of  God, 
That  ever  when  she  walketh  in  the  world, 
It  shall  be  Eden.    And  around  her  come 
The  happy  wonts  of  early  Paradise. 
Again  the  mist  ascemleth  from  the  earth, 
And  -.vatereth  the  ground  ;  and  at  the  sign, 
Nature,  that  silent  saw  our  wo,  breaks  forth 
Into  her  olden  singing ;  near  and  far 
To  full  and  voluntary  chorus  tune 
Spontaneous  throats. 

Morn  liath  no  past. 
Primeval,  perfect,  she,  not  bom  to  toil, 


126  A  CLUSTER  OF  NEW  POETS. 


Steppeth  from  under  the  great  weight  of  life, 
And  stands  as  at  the  first. 

As  love,  that  hath  his  cell 

In  the  deep  secret  heart,  doth  with  his  breath  . 

Enrich  the  precincts  of  his  sanctuary, 
And  glorify  the  brow,  and  tint  the  cheek ; 
As  in  a  summer-garden,  one  beloved, 
Whom  roses  hide,  unseen  fills  all  the  place 
With  happy  presence  ;  as  to  the  void  soul, 
Beggar' d  with  famine  and  with  drought,  lo,  God ! 
And  there  is  great  abundance ;  so  comes  MORX, 
Plenishes  all  things,  and  completes  the  world." 

We  could  select  a  hundred  passages  of  equal  merit ;  but,  as 
faithful  critics,  are  bound  now  to  take  notice,  and  that  at  some 
little  length,  of  what  we  think  the  defects  of  this  remarkable 
poem. 

"We  think  that  the  two  main  objections  to  "  Balder  "  will 
be  monotony  and  obscurity.  We  will  not  say  of  the  hero, 
what  an  admirer  of  Yendys  said  of  the  Monk  in  "  The  Ro- 
man,"  that  he  is  a  great  bore  and  humbug ;  but  we  will  say 
that  he  talks  too  much,  and  does  too  little.  The  poem  is  lit- 
tle else  than  one  long  soliloquy — a  piece  of  thinking  aloud ; 
and  this  kind  of  mental  dissection,  however  masterly,  begins, 
toward  the  end  of  282  pages,  to  fatigue  the  reader.  "  Bal- 
der "  is  in  this  respect  a  poem  of  the  Manfred  and  Cain  school, 
but  is  far  longer,  and  thus  palls  more  on  the  attention  than 
they.  A  more  fatal  objection  is  the  great  obscurity  of  much 
in  this  poem.  The  storj  does  not  pervade  it,  as  a  clear  road 
passes  through  a  noble  landscape,  or  climbs  a  lofty  hill,  dis- 
tinct even  in  its  windings,  and  forming  a  line  of  light,  connect- 
ing province  with  province :  it  is  a  footpath  piercing  dark  for- 
ests, and  often  muffled  and  lost  amid  their  umbrage.  The 
wailings  of  Balder  toward  the  close  become  oppressive,  inar- 
ticulate, and  half-frenzied ;  and  from  the  lack  of  interest  con- 
nected with  him  as  a  person,  seem  unnatural,  and  produce 
pain  rather  than  admiration.  This  obscurity  of  Yendys  has 
been,  as  we  hinted  before,  growing  on  him.  We  saw  few 
traces  of  it  in  "  The  Roman."  It  began  first  to  appear  in 
some  smaller  poems  he  contributed  to  the  "Athenaeum,"  and 
has,  we  trust,  reached  its  climax  in  the  latter  pages  and 
scenes  of  "  Balder."  It  is  produced  partly  by  his  love  of 
personification  and  allegory — figures  in  which  he  often  indeed 


SYDNEY    YENDYS.  127 


greatly  excels  ;  partly  by  a  diseased  subtlety  of  introspective 
thought ;  partly  by  those  fainting-fits  to  which  his  demon  (like 
a  very  different  being,  Giant  Despair  in  the  "  Pilgrim  ")  is  sub- 
ject at  certain  times,  and  partly  by  a  pedantry  of  language, 
which  is  altogether  unworthy  of  so  masculine  a  genius. 
Take  two  specimens  of  this  last-mentioned  fault : — 

"  Adjusting  every  witness  of  the  soul, 
By  such  external  warrants  I  do  reach 
Herself ;  the  centre  and  untakeu  core 
Of  this  enchanted  castle,  whose  far  lines 
And  strong  circuravallations,  in  and  in 
Concentring,  I  have  carried,  but  found  not 
The  foe  that  makes  them  deadly ;  and  I  stand 
Before  these  most  fair  walls  ;  and  know  he  lies 
Contain'  d,  and  in  the  wont  of  savage  war 
Prowl  round  my  scathless  enemy,  and  plot, 
Where,  at  what  time,  with  what  consummate  blow, 
To  storm  his  last  retreat,  and  sack  ths  sense 
Tliat  dens  her  fierce  decease." 

The  second  is  worse,  with  the  exception  of  the  first  four 
lines : — 

"  As  one  should  trace 
An  angel  to  the  hill  wherefrom  he  rose 
To  heaven,  and  on  whose  top  the  vacant  steps, 
In  march  progressive,  with  no  backward  print, 
A  sudden  cease.    Sometimes,  being  swift,  I  meet 
His  fallen  mantle,  torn  off  in  the  wind 
Of  great  ascent,  whereof  the  Attalic  pomp 
Between  mine  eyes  and  him  perchance  conceals 
The  bare  celestial.     Whose  still  happier  speed 
Shall  look  up  to  him,  while  the  blinding  toy, 
In  far  perspective,  is  but  as  a  plume 
Dropp'd  from  the  eagle  1     Whose  talarian  feet 
Shall  stand  unshod  before  him  while  he  spreads 
His  pinions']" 

His  description  of  the  heroine,  with  all  its  exquisite  touches, 
is  considerably  spoiled  by  a  similar  unwise  elaboration  and  in- 
tricacy of  language  : — 

"  But  when  the  year  was  grown 
And  sweet  by  warmer  sweet  to  nuptial  June, 
Thejlowery  adolescence  slowly  fill'd, 
Till,  in  a  passion  of  roses,  all  the  time 
Flush'd,  and  around  the  glowing  heavens  made  suit, 
And  onward  through  the  rank  and  buxom  days,"  Ac. 


128  A  CLUSTER  OF  NEW  POETS. 


There  is  a  mixture  of  fine  fancy  with  the  quaintness  antl 
odd  phraseology  of  what  follows  : — 

"  She  came  In  September, 
And  if  she  were  o'erlaid  with  lily  leaves, 
And  substantived  by  mere  content  of  dews, 
Or  liinb'd  of  flower-stalks  and  sweet  pedicles, 
Or  make  of  golden  dust  from  thigh  of  bees, 
Or  caught  of  morning  mist,  or  the  unseen 
Material  of  an  odor,  her  pure  text 
Could  seem  no  more  remote  from  the  corrupt 
And  seething  compound  of  our  common  flesh  5" 

A  splendid  passage  near  this  is  utterly  spoiled  by  language 
as  apparently  affected  as  anything  in  Hunt's  "  Foliage,"  or 
Keats'  "  Endymion :" — 

'  Nature  thus — 

The  poet  Nature  singing  to  herself — 
Did  make  her  in  sheer  love,  having  delight 
Of  all  her  work,  and  doing  all  for  joy, 
And  built  her  like  a  temple  wherein  cost 
Is  absolute  ;  dark  beam  and  hidden  raft 
Shittim ;  each  secret  work  and  covert  use 
Frngrant  and  golden ;  all  the  virgin  walls 
Pure,  and  within,  without,  prive  and  apert. 
From  buried  plinth  to  viewless  pinnacle, 
Enrich' d  to  God." 

In  justice,  we  must  add  one  of  the  "better  passages  of  this 
very  elaborate,  and  in  many  points  signally  felicitous  descrip- 
tion : 

"Yet  more  I  loved 

An  art,  which  of  all  others  seem'd  the  voice 
And  argument,  rare  art,  at  better  close 
A  chosen  day,  worn  like  a  jewel  rare 
To  beautify  the  beauteous,  and  make  bright 
The  twilight  of  some  sacred  festival 
Of  love  and  peace.    Her  happy  memory 
Was  many  poesies,  and  when  serene 
Beneath  the  favoring  shades,  and  the  first  star 
She  audibly  remember'd,  they  who  heard 
Believed  the  Muse  no  fable.     As  that  star 
Unsullied  from  the  skies,  out  of  the  shrine 
Of  her  dear  beauty  beautifully  came 
The  beautiful,  untinged  by  any  taint 
Of  mortal  dwelling,  neither  flush'd  nor  pale, 
Pure  in  the  naked  loveliness  of  heaven, 
Such  and  so  graced  was  she." 

Smith  and  Yendys  differ  very  materially  in  their  conception 


SYDNEY    YENDYS.  129 


of  women.  Smith's  females  are  houris  in  a  Mahometan  hea- 
ven ;  those  of  Yendys  are  angels  in  the  Paradise  of  our  God. 
Smith's  emblem  of  woman  is  a  rich  and  luscious  rose,  bending 
to  every  breath  of  wind,  and  wooing  every  eye ;  that  of  Yen- 
dys is  a  star  looking  across  gulfs  of  space  and  galaxies  of 
splendor,  to  one  chosen  earthly  lover,  whose  eyes  alone  respond 
to  the  mystic  messages  of  the  celestial  bride.  Smith's  idea 
of  love,  though  not  impure,  is  passionate ;  that  of  Yendys  is 
more  Platonic  than  Plato's  own.  We  think  that  the  true, 
the  human,  the  poetic,  arid  the  Christian  idea  of  love,  includes 
and  compounds  the  sensuous  and  the  spiritual  elements  into 
one — a  tcrtium  quid — diviner,  shall  we  say  ?  because  more 
complete  than  either ;  and  which  Milton  and  Coleridge  (in  his 
"  Love ")  have  alone  of  our  poets  adequately  represented. 
Shelley,  like  Yendys,  is  too  spiritual ;  Keats,  like  Smith,  is 
too  sensuous.  Shakspeare,  we  think,  makes  woman  too  much 
the  handmaid,  instead  of  the  companion,  of  man :  his  yield- 
ing, bending  shadow,  not  his  sister  and  friend : — 

"  Stronger  Shakspeare  felt  for  man  alone." 

Ere  closing  this  critique,  we  have  to  mention  one  or  two  con- 
clusions in  reference  to  Yendys'  genius,  which  this  book  has 
deeply  impressed  on  our  minds.  First,  his  forte  is  not  the 
drama  or  the  lyrical  poem.  The  lyrics  in  this  poem  are  nu- 
merous, but  none  of  them  equal  to  Smith's  "  Garden  and 
Child,"  or  to  his  own  "  Winter  Night,"  in  "  The  Koman ;" 
none  of  them  entirely  worthy  of  his  genius.  Nor  is  he  strik- 
ingly dramatic  in  the  management  of  his  scenes  and  situations. 
He  should  give  us  next,  either  a  great  prose  work,  developing 
his  peculiar  theory  of  things,  in  the  bold,  rich,  and  eloquent 
btyle  of  those  articles  he  contributed  to  "  The  Palladium," 
"  The  Sun,"  and  "  The  Eclectic  ;"  or  he  should  bind  himself 
up  to  the  task  he  has  already  in  his  eye,  that  of  constructing 
a  great  epic  poem.  We  know  no  writer  of  the  age  who,  if  he 
will  but  clarify  somewhat  his  style,  and  select  some  stern, 
high,  continuous  narrative  for  his  theme,  is  so  sure  to  succeed 
in  this  forsaken  walk  of  the  Titans.  The  poet  who  has  coped 
with  the  Coliseum,  the  most  magnificent  production  of  man's 
art,  and  with  Chamouni,  the  grandest  of  God's  earthly  works, 
need  shrink  from  no  topic,  however  lofty ;  nay,  the  loftier  his 
theme  the  better. 


130  A    CLUSTER   OF   NEW   POETS. 


NO.    II. -ALEXANDER    SMITH. 

THERE  is  something  exceedingly  sweet  but  solemn  in  the 
strain  of  thought  suggested  by  the  appearance  of  a  new  and 
true  poet.  Well  is  his  uprise  often  compared  to  that  of  a 
new  star  arising  in  the 'midnight.  What  is  he  ?  Whence  has 
he  come  ?  Whither  is  he  going  ?  And  how  long  is  he  to 
continue  to  shine  ?  Such  are  questions  which  are  alike  ap- 
plicable to  the  planet  and  to  the  poet.  A  new  poet,  like  a 
new  planet,  is  another  proof  of  the  continued  existence  of  the 
creative  energy  of  the  "  Father  of  Spirits."  He  is  a  new  mes- 
senger and  mediator  between  the  Infinite  and  the  race  of  man. 
Whither  rising  or  falling,  retreating  or  culminating,  in  aphe- 
lion or  in  perihelion,  he  is  continually  an  instructor  to  his 
kind.  There  is  never  a  moment  when  he  is  not  seen  by  some 
one,  and  when  to  be  seen  is,  of  course,  to  shine.  And  if  his 
mission  be  thoroughly  accomplished,  the  men  of  future  ages 
are  permitted  either  to  share  in  the  shadow  of  his  splendor,  or 
to  fill  their  empty  urns  with  the  relict  radiance  of  his  beams. 

"  A  thing  of  beauty  is  a  joy  for  ever  ;" 

so  a  poet,  a  king  of  beauty,  is  for  ever  a  joy  or  a  terror ;  a 
gulf  of  glory  opening  above,  or  an  abyss  of  torment  and  mys- 
tery gaping  below. 

'Tis  verily  a  fearful  gift  that  of  poetic  genius  ;  and  fearful, 
especially,  through  the  immortality  which  waits  upon  all  its 
genuine  inspirations,  whatever  be  their  moral  purpose  and 
tendency.  Thus,  a  Marlowe  is  as  immortal  as  a  Milton — a 
Congreve  as  a  Goldsmith — a  Byron  or  Burns  as  a  Words- 
worth or  James  Montgomery — an  Edgar  Poe  as  a  Longfellow 
or  a  Lowell.  Just  look  at  the  dreadful,  the  unquenchable,  the 
infernal  life  of  Poe's  "  Lyrics  and  Tales."  No  one  can  read 
these  without  shuddering,  without  pity,  and  sorrow,  and  con- 
demnation of  the  author,  without  a  half-muttered  murmur  of 
inquiry  at  his  Maker — "  Why  this  awful  anomaly  in  thy 
works  ?"  And  yet  no  one  can  avoid  reading  them,  and  reading 
th3m  again,  and  hanging  over  their  lurid  and  lightning-blast- 


ALEXANDER    SMITH.  131 


ed  pages,  and  thinking  that  this  wondrous  being  wanted  only 
two  things  to  have  made  him  the  master  of  American  minds — 
virtue  and  happiness.  And  there  steals  in  another  thought, 
which  deepens  the  melancholy  and  eternises  the  interest — 
what  would  Poe  NOW  give  to  have  lived  another  life  than  he 
did,  and  to  have  devoted  his  inestimable  powers  to  other  works 
than  the  convulsive  preparation  of  such  terrible  trifles — such 
nocturncB  nugte — as  constitute  his  remains  ?  And  still  more 
empathically,  what  would  Swift  and  Byron  now  exchange  for 
the  liberty  of  suppressing  their  fouler  and  more  malignant 
works — works  which,  nevertheless,  a  world  so  long  as  it  lies 
in  wickedness  shall  never  willingly  let  die  ? 

Alas  !  it  is  too  late  •  eipyaaro,  as  the  Greek  play  has  it. 
The  shaft  of  genius  once  ejaculated  can  be  recalled  no  more, 
be  it  aimed  at  Satan  or  at  God.  And  hence  in  our  day  the 
peculiar  propriety,  nay,  necessity,  of  prefacing  or  winding  up 
our  praise  of  poetic  power  by  such  a  stern  caution  to  its  pos- 
sessor as  this  : — "  Be  thou  sure  that  thy  word,  whether  that 
of  an  angel  or  a  fiend,  whether  openly  or  secretly  blasphemous, 
whether  loyal  or  rebellious  to  the  existence  of  a  God  and  of 
his  great  laws,  whether  in  favor  of  the  alternative  Despair  or 
the  alternative  Revelation,  the  only  two  possible,  shall  endure 
with  the  endurance  of  earth,  and  shall  remain  on  thy  head 
either  a  halo  of  horror  or  a  crown  of  glory." 

Claiming,  as  we  do,  something  of  a  paternal  interest  in 
Alexander  Smith,  we  propose,  in  the  remainder  of  this  paper, 
first  characterizing  his  peculiar  powers,  and  secondly,  adding 
to  this  estimate  our  most  sincere  and  friendly  counsel  as  to 
their  future  exercise. 

It  is  a  labor  of  love ;  for  ever  since  the  straggling,  scratch- 
ing MS.,  along  with  its  accompanying  letter,  reached  our  still 
study,  we  have  loved  the  author  of  the  "  Life  Drama ;"  and 
all  the  more  since  we  met  him  in  his  quiet  yet  distinct,  modest 
yet  manly  personality.  And  perhaps  the  opportunities  of  ob- 
servation which  have  been  thus  afforded  may  qualify  us  for 
speaking  with  greater  certainty  and  satisfaction,  both  to  our- 
selves and  others,  than  the  majority  of  his  critics,  about  the 
principal  elements  of  his  genius. 

We  may  first,  however,  glance  at  some  of  the  charges  which 
even  his  friendly  critics  have  brought  against  him.  He  has 


132  A  CLUSTER  OF  NEW  POETS. 


been  accused  of  over  sensuousness.  The  true  answer 
to  this  is  to  state  his  youth.  He  is  only  twenty-five 
years  of  age,  and  wrote  all  those  parts  of  the  poem  to  which 
objections  have  been  made  when  he  was  two  or  three  years 
younger.  Every  youth  of  genius  must  be  sensuous  ;  and  if  he 
write  poetry,  ought,  in  truth  to  his  own  nature,  to  express  it 
there.  Of  course  we  distinguish  between  the  sensuous  and  the 
sensual.  Smith  is  never  sensual ;  and  his  most  glowing  des- 
criptions, no  more  than  those  in  the  "  Song  of  Songs,"  tend 
to  excite  lascivious  feelings.  Female  beauty  is  a  natural  ob- 
ject of  admiration,  and  a  young  poet  filled  with  this  passionate; 
feeling,  were  a  mere  hypocrite  if  he  did  not  voice  it  forth  in 
verse,  and,  both  as  an  artist  and  as  an  honest  man,  will  feel  him- 
self compelled  to  do  so.  Had  Wordsworth  himself  written  poe- 
try at  that  period  of  his  life  to  which  he  afterwards  so  beauti- 
fully refers  in  the  lines — 

"  0  happy  time  of  youthful  lovers, 
0  balmy  time,  in  which  a  love-knot  on  a  lady's  hrow 
Seem'd  fairer  than  the  fairest  star  in  heaven" — 

it  had  perhaps  been  scarcely  less  richly  flesh-colored  than  the 
"  Life  Drama."  In  general,  however,  the  true  poet,  as  he  ad- 
vances in  his  life  and  in  his  career,  will  become  less  and  less 
sensuous  in  feeling  and  in  song.  Woman's  form  will  retreat 
farther  back  in  the  sky  of  his  fancy,  and  woman's  ideal  will 
come  more  prominently  forward ;  she  will  "  die  in  the  flesh,  to 
be  raised  in  the  spirit;"  and  this  inevitable  process,  through 
which  even  Moore  passed,  and  Keats  was  passing  at  his  death, 
.shall  yet  be  realised  in  Alexander  Smith,  if  he  continue  to 
live,  and  his  critics  consent  to  wait.  If  our  readers  will  com- 
pare Shelley's  conception  of  woman,  in  his  juvenile  novels 
"  Zastrozzi"  and  the  "  Rosicrucian,"  with  Beatrice  Cenci,  or 
the  graceful  imaginary  female  forms  which  play  like  creatures 
of  the  elements  in  the  "  Prometheus,"  he  will  find  another 
striking  instance  of  what  we  mean.  In  some  cases,  perhaps, 
the  process  may  be  reversed,  and  the  young  poet  who  began 
with  the  ideal  may,  in  after  life,  descend  to  the  real,  and 
drown  his  early  dream  of  spiritual  love  in  sensuous  admira- 
tion and  desire.  But  these  we  think  are  rare,  and  are  ac- 
counted for  as  much  from  physical  as  from  mental  causes. 


ALEXANDER    SMITH.  133 


Smith  has  been  called  an  imitator,  or  even  a  plagiarist. 
We  are  not  careful  to  answer  in  this  matter,  except  by  again 
referring  to  his  age.  All  young  poets  are  imitators.  "  Po- 
etry," says  Aristotle,  "is  imitation."  It  begins  with  imita- 
tion, and  it  continues  in  imitation,  and  with  imitation  it  ends. 
The  difference  between  the  various  stages  only  is,  that  in  boy- 
hood and  early  youth  poets  imitate  other  poets,  and  that  in 
manhood  they  pass  from  the  study  of  models  which  they  may 
admire  to  error  and  extravagance,  to  that  great  original,  which, 
without  blame,  excites  an  infinite  and  endless  devotion.  That 
Smith  has  read  and  admired,  and  learned  of  Keats,  and  Shel- 
ley, and  Tennyson,  and  many  others,  is  obvious;  but  it  is 
obvious  also  that  he  has  read  his  own  heart  still  more  closely, 
and  has  learned  still  more  from  the  book  of  nature.  Every 
page  contains  allusions  to  his  favorite  authors;  but  every 
page,  too,  contains  evidences  of  a  rich  native  vein.  The  man 
who  preserves  his  idiosyncrasy  amid  much  reading  of  the 
poets,  is  more  to  be  praised  than  he  who,  in  horror  at  plagiar- 
ism, draws  a  cordon  sanitaire  around  himself,  and  refuses  to 
cultivate  acquaintance  with  the  great  classics  of  his  age  and 
country.  A  true  original  is  often  most  so  when  he  is  imitat- 
ing or  even  translating  others.  So  Smith  has  marvellously 
improved  some  of  the  few  figures  he  has  borrowed.  The  ob- 
jects shown  are  sometimes  the  same  as  in  other  authors,  but 
he  has  cast  on  them  the  mellowing,  softening,  and  spiritualis- 
ing moonlight  of  his  own  genius. 

A  still  more  common  objection  is  a  certain  monotony  of 
figure  which  marks  his  poetry.  He  draws,  it  is  said,  all  his 
imagery  from  the  stars,  the  sea,  the  sun,  and  the  moon.  Now 
we  think  we  can  not  only  defend  him  iu  this,  but  deduce  from 
it  an  argument  in  favor  of  the  power  and  truth  of  his  genius. 
What  bad  or  mediocre  poet  could  have  meddled  with  these 
old  objects  without  failure  ?  Nothing  in  general  so  vapid  as 
odes  to  the  moon,  or  sonnets  on  the  sea.  But  Smith  has 
lifted  up  his  daring  rod  to  the  heavens,  and  extracted  new 
and  rich  imagination  from  their  unfading  fires.  He  has  once 
more  laid  a  poet's  hand  upon  the  ocean's  mane,  and  the  sea 
has  known  his  rider,  and  shaken  forth  a  stormy  poetry  to  his 
touch.  Besides,  his  circumstances  have  prevented  him  from 
coming  in  contact  habitually  with  aught  but  nature's  elemen- 


134  A  CLUSTER  OF  NEW  POETS. 


tary  forms,  aud  he  has  sung  only  what  was  most  familiar  to 
his  mind.  What  could  he  have  told  us  about  the 

"  Alps  and  Apennines, 
The  Pyrenean  and  the  river  Po," 

whose  summer  excursions  never,  till  of  late,  extended  farther 
than  Inversuaid  or  Glencoe,  and  to  whom 

:!  The  stars  were  nearer  than  the  fields  ?'' 

Nothing  worth  listening  to ;  and  therefore  he  watches  the 
moon  circling  large  and  queenly  over  the  smoky  tiles  of  the 
Gallowgate ;  or  he  contemplates  the  round  red  sun,  shining 
rayless  through  the  Glasgow  morning  fogs ;  or  he  sees  the 
head  of  the  Great  Bear  or  the  foot  of  Orion  glimmering  on 
him  at  the  corner  of  the  streets ;  or  striking  out  from  the 
city,  he  marks  the 

"  Laboring  fires  come  out  against  the  dark, 
Where,  with  the  night,  the  country  seemed  on  flame  ; 
Innumerable  furnaces  and  pits, 
And  gloomy  holds,  in  which  that  bright  slave,  Fire, 
Doth  pant  and  toil  all  day  and  night  for  man, 
Throw  large  and  angry  lustres  on  the  sky, 
And  shifting  lights  across  the  long  black  roads." 

Or,  in  his  rare  holidays,  he  sails  to  Loch  Lomond,  or  paces 
the  banks  of  Loch  Lubnaig,  and  fancies  eclipse  instead  of 
sunshine  bathing  the  crags  of  Benledi,  and  shadowing  into 
terror  and  inky  darkness  the  placid  lake.  Thus  has  he  sought 
to  realise  and  to  utter  the  poetry  which  he  has  found  around 
him,  and,  verily,  great  has  been  his  reward.  Few  as  are  the 
objects  he  describes,  what  a  depth  of  interest  he  attaches  to 
them.  With  what  lingering  gusto  does  he  describe  them.  In 
proportion  to  the  smallness  of  their  number,  is  the  strength 
of  his  love,  the  felicity  of  his  descriptions,  and  the  energy 
and  variety  of  the  poetic  use  he  makes  of  them.  It  is  as  if 
he  were  apprehensive  of  immediate  .blindness  coming  to  hide 
them  from  his  view,  and  were  anxious  previously  to  daguerreo- 
type them  for  ever  before  the  eye  of  his  soul. 

In  this  we  are  reminded  of  Ossian ;  and  the  defence  put  in 
by  Blair  on  behalf  of  the  monotony  of  the  objects  of  his  poetry 
may  be  used  with  fully  more  force  in  reference  to  Smith.  His 
figures,  like  Ossian's,  are  chiefly  derived  from  the  great  pri- 


ALEXANDER    SMITH.  135 


mary  forms  of  nature,  but  their  application  is  still  more  va- 
rious, and  much  less  than  the  Highland  bard  does  he  repeat 
himself,  not  to  speak  of  the  far  subtler  and  intenser  spirit  of 
imagination  which  pervades  the  later  poet.  For  we  fearlessly 
venture  to  assert,  that  no  poet  that  ever  lived  has  excelled 
Smith  in  the  beauty  and  exquisite  analogical  perception  dis- 
played in  his  images  from  nature.  We  select  a  few  on  this 
principle,  that  we  have  not  seen  them  quoted  in  any  other  of 
the  reviews  or  notices  : — 

"  The  anguish' d  earth  shines  on  the  moon — a  moon.1' 

"  Now  the  fame  that  scorned  him  while  he  liv'd 
Waits  on  him  like  a  menial." 

"  His  part  is  worst  that  touches  this  base  world  ; 
Although  the  ocean's  inmost  heart  be  pure, 
Yet  the  salt  fringe  that  daily  licks  the  shore 
Is  gross  with  sand." 

"  The  vain  young  night 
Trembles  o'er  her  own  beauty  in  the  sea." 

"  The  soft  star  that  in  the  azure  east 
Trembles  in  pity  o'er  bright  bleeding  day." 

"  The  hot  Indies,  on  whose  teeming  plains 
The  seasons  four,  knit  in  one  flowery  band, 
Are  dancing  ever." 

"  Oh,  could  I  lift  my  heart  into  her  sight, 
As  an  old  mountain  lifts  its  martyr's  cairn 
Into  the  pure  sight  of  the  holy  heavens" 

"His  cataract  of  golden  curls." 

"  The  married  colors  in  the  bow  of  heaven." 

"  The  while  the  thoughts  rose  in  her  eyes,  like  stars 
Kising  and  setting  in  the  blue  of  night " 

"  The  earnest  sea 

....  ne'er  can  shape  unto  the  listening  hills 
The  lore  it  gather' d  in  its  awful  age  : 
The  crime  for  which  'tis  lash'd  by  cruel  winds 
To  shrieks,  mad  spoomings  to  the  frighted  hills." 

"  A  gallant,  curl'd  like  Absalom, 
Cheek'd  like  Apollo,  with  his  luted  voice." 

"  'Tis  four  o'clock  already.    See,  the  moon 
Has  climb'd  the  blue  steep  of  the  eastern  sky, 
And  sits  and  tarries  for  the  coming  night, 
So  let  thy  soul  be  up  and  ready  arm'd, 
In  waiting  till  occasion  comes  like  night." 

'  The  marigold  was  burning  in  the  marsh, 
Like  a  thing  dipp'd  in  sunset." 


13G  A  CLUSTER  OF  NEW  POETS. 


By  the  way,  not  one  critic,  so  far  as  we  know,  has  noticed 
the  exquisite  poem  from  which  this  last  line  is  quoted — a  poem 
originally  entitled  u  The  Garden  and  the  Child,"  and  which 
alike  we  and  the  author  consider  the  best  strain  in  the  whole 
"  Life  Drama."  Our  readers  will  find  it  in  page  91.  Its 
history  is  curious.  Mr.  Smith  was  trudging  one  day  to  his 
work  along  the  Trongate,  when  he  saw  a  child  "  beautiful  as 
heaven."  There  was  no  more  work  for  him  that  day.  Her 
face  haunted  him  ;  her  future  history  rose  before  his  fancy ; 
and  in  the  evening  he  wrote  the  poem  (or  rather  it  "  came 
upon  him")  in  the  space  of  two  hours.  Certainly  it  reads  like 
inspiration.  It  is  one  gush  of  tender  or  terrible  beauty.  The 
author  now  says  of  it  (p.  101) : — 

"  I  almost  smile 

At  the  strange  fancies  I  have  girt  her  with — 
The  garden,  peacock,  and  the  black  eclipse, 
The  still  grave-yard  among  the  dreary  hills, 
Grey  mourners  round  it.     I  wonder  if  she's  dead. 
She  was  too  fair  for  earth." 

The  child  is  another  little  Eva.  We  must  say  that  we  love 
not  only  little  children,  but  all  who  love  them.  Especially 
we  sympathise  with  all  those  who  have  some  one  dead  and 
sainted  image  of  a  child  hanging  up  in  the  chamber  of  their 
heart,  as  Kate  Wordsworth  hangs  in  De  Quincey's,  and  A.  V. 
hangs  in  our  own,  and  who  daily  and  nightly  pay  their  orisons 
to  the  Great  God  who  dwelt  in  it  for  a  season.  We  suspect 
that  scarce  one  who  has  lived  to  middle  age  but  can  remember 
some  such  early  sunbeam,  which  shone  as  only  sunbeams  in 
the  morning  can  shine,  and  returned  with  its  freshness  and 
glory  all  untainted  to  the  fountain  whence  it  sprang,  bearing 
with  it  in  its  return  to  heaven  a  whole,  loving,  yearning, 
broken,  yet  submissive  heart.  Perhaps,  after  all,  this  feeling 
may  have  prejudiced  us  in  favor  of  the  "  Garden  and  the 
Child,"  but  certainly  it  was  the  perusal  of  it  which  first  in- 
creased to  certainty  our  previous  notion  that  Mr.  Smith  was 
one  of  our  truest  poets. 

It  convinced  us,  too,  that  he  had  a  heart.  This,  we  fear, 
has  of  late  been  a  vital  deficiency  in  many  of  our  most  cele- 
brated bards.  The  od/ous  examples  of  Goethe  and  Byron, 


ALEXANDER.    SMITH.  137 


the  constant  inculcation,  by  critics,  of  the  necessity  of  reach- 
ing artistic  merit  at  every  expense  and  every  hazard,  and  the 
solitary  or  divorced  life  of  some  of  our  literary  men,  not  to 
speak  of  the  withering  effects  of  scepticism  and  of  a  modified 
licentiousness,  have  all  tended  to  deaden  or  mislead,  or  to  ren- 
der morbid,  the  feelings  of  our  men  of  genius.  Neither  Keats 
nor  Moore,  nor  Tennyson  nor  Rogers,  nor  Henry.  Taylor, 
have  given,  in  their  poetry,  any  decided  evidence  of  that  warm, 
impulsive,  childlike  glow,  which  all  men  agree  in  calling 
"  heart."  They  have  proved  abundantly  that  they  are  artists, 
and  even  poets,  but  have  failed  to  prove  that  they  are  men. 

We  rejoice,  however,  to  recognize  in  our  younger  genera- 
tion of  poets — in  Yendys  and  Smith,  and  Bigg  and  Bailey — 
symptoms  that  a  better  order  of  things  is  at  hand,  and  that 
the  principle,  "  the  Greatest  of  these  is  Love,"  so  long  ac- 
knowledged in  religion,  shall  by  and  by  be  felt  to  be  the  law 
of  poetry — understanding,  too,  by  love,  not  a  mere  liking  to 
all  things,  not  a  mere  indifferentism,  raised  on  its  elbow  to 
contemplate  objects,  but  a  warm,  strong,  and  enacted  prefer- 
ence for  all  things  that  are  "  lovely  and  true,  and  of  a  good 
report." 

The  great  distinction  between  the  speaker  and  the  singer  in 
this  age,  as  in  past  ages,  is,  perhaps,  music.  Many  now,  a,s 
ever,  possessing  all  other  parts  of  the  poet — genius,  originali- 
ty, constructive  power — are  doomed  (sad  fate  !)  all  their  lives 
long  to  the  level  of  prose  by  their  deficiency  in  ear,  their  want 
of  music.  Apollo's  soul  may  be  in  them,  but  Apollo's  lute 
they  can  by  no  means  tune.  Look  at  Walter  Savage  Landor  ! 
No  one  can  doubt  that  he  is  intensely  and  essentially  a  poet, 
and  that  his  prose  and 'verse  contain  little  bursts  of  glorious 
poetic  music.  But  they  are  brief;  they  are  broken  ;  they  are 
not  sustained  ;  they  are  perpetually  intermingled  with  harsh 
and  harrow-like  paragraphs,  and  both  his  prose  and  verse  con- 
join in  proving  that  he  never  could  have  elaborated  any  long, 
linked,  and  continuous  harmony.  Feeling  all  this,  we  have 
watched  with  considerable  interest  and  care  Smith's  versifica- 
tion, trying  it,  however,  not  by  any  artificial  standard,  but 
solely  by  the  ear ;  and  our  decided  opinion  is,  that  he  has 
been  destined  by  nature  to  sing  rather  than  to  speak  his  fine 


138  A  CLUSTER  OF  NEW  POETS. 


thoughts  to  the  world.     His  poetry  abounds  with  every  va- 
riety of  natural  music. 

Take  that  of  the  ballad,  in  this  specimen  : — 

"  In  winter,  when  the  dismal  rain 
Comes  down  in  slanting  lines, 
And  Wind,  that  grand  old  harper,  smote 
His  thunder  harp  of  pines. 

*  *  #  * 

"  When  violets  came  and  woods  were  green, 

And  larks  did  skyward  dart, 
A  Love  alit  and  white  did  sit 
Like  an  angel  on  his  heart. 

*  *  *  * 

"  The  Lady  Blanche  was  saintly  fair, 

Nor  proud,  but  meek  her  look  ; 
In  her  hazel  eyes  her  thoughts  lay  clear 
As  pebbles  in  a  brook. 

*  *  *  * 

"  The  world  is  old,  oh  !  very  old ; 

The  wild  winds  weep  and  rave  : 
The  world  is  old,  and  grey,  and  cold, 
Let  it  drop  into  its  grave." 

Or  take  a  specimen  of  what  we  may  call  the  Wordsworth- 
ian  measure,  culled  from  the  "  Garden  and  the  Child  :" — 

"  She  sat  on  shaven  plot  of  grass, 
With  earnest  face,  and  weaving 
Lilies  white  and  freak' d  pansies 
Into  quaint  delicious  fancies  ; 
Then,  on  a  sudden,  leaving 
Her  floral  wreath,  she  would  upspring, 
With  silver  shouts  and  ardent  eyes, 
To  chase  the  yellow  butterflies, 

Making  the  garden  ring  ; 
Then  gravely  pace  the  scented  walk, 
Soothing  her  doll  with  childish  talk." 

*  *  *  * 

"  That  night  the  sky  was  heap'd  with  clouds  ; 
Through  one  blue  gulf  profound, 
Begirt  with  many  a  cloudy  crag, 
The  moon  carne  rushing  like  a  stag, 
And  one  star  like  a  hound  : 
Wearily  the  chase  I  eyed, 
AVearily  I  saw  the  Dawn's 
Feet  sheening  o'er  the  dewy  lawns. 

Oh  God  !  that  I  had  died. 
My  heart's  red  tendrils  all  were  torn, 
And  bleeding,  on  that  summer  morn." 


ALEXANDER.    SMITH.  139 


Or  take  a  specimen  of  rich  voluptuous  blank  verse  : — 

"  I  will  bo  kind  when  next  he  brings  mo  flowers 
Pluck' d  from  the  shining  forehead  of  the  morn, 
Ere  they  have  oped  their  rich  cores  to  the  bee ; 
His  wild  heart  with  a  ringlet  will  I  chain, 
And  o'er  him  I  will  lean  me  like  a  heaven, 
And  feed  him  with  sweet  looks  and  dew-soft  words, 
And  beauty  that  might  make  a  monarch  pale, 
And  thrill  him  to  the  heart's  core  with  a  touch  : 
Smile  him  to  Paradise  at  close  of  eve, 
To  hang  upon  my  lips  in  silver  dreams." 

Or  hear  this  sterner,  loftier,  more  epical  strain : — 

"  A  grim  old  king, 

Whose  blood  leap'd  madly  when  the  trumpets  bray'd, 
To  joyous  battle  'mid  a  storm  of  steeds, 
Won  a  rich  kingdom  on  a  battle-day  ; 
But  in  the  sunset  he  was  ebbing  fast, 
Ring'd  by  his  weeping  lords.    His  left  hand  held 
His  white  steed,  to  the  belly  plash'd  with  blood, 
That  seem'd  to  mourn  him  with  its  drooping  head  ; 
His  right  his  broken  brand  ;  and  in  his  ear 
His  old  victorious  banners  flap  the  winds. 
He  call'd  his  faithful  herald  to  his  side — 
'  Go !  tell  the  dead  I  come.'     With  a  proud  smile, 
The  warrior  with  a  stab  let  out  his  soul, 
Which  fled,  and  shriek'd  through  all  the  other  world — 
'  Ye  dead !  my  master  comes !'     And  there  was  pause 
Till  the  great  shade  should  enter." 

Does  not  this  description  remind  you  of  Homer's  style  ? 
How  rugged  yet  powerful  its  melody  !  We  could  quote  many 
other  passages,  all  corroborating  our  statement  that  Smith  is 
naturally  a  master  of  music,  and  needs  only  a  careful  culture 
to  complete  the  mastery.  Since  the  appearance  of  the  "  Life 
Drama,"  he  published  a  little  chant  in  a  Glasgow  newspaper, 
entitled  "  Barbara,"  the  copy  of  which  we  have  mislaid,  else 
we  would  have  quoted  it  as  a  final  triumphant  proof  of  his 
musical  power,  as  well  as  of  his  lyrical  genius.  It  is  one  of 
the  most  touching  little  laments  in  the  language.  But  here  a 
question  of  greater  moment  occurs — Has  this  young  poet,  in 
addition  to  his  exquisite  imagery,  his  heart,  and  his  music,  a 
true  and  deep  vein  of  thought,  and  does  that  thought,  as  all 
deep  veins  of  reflection  should  do,  run  into  religion  ?  What 


140  A    CLUSTER.    OF    NEW    POETS. 


is  his  theory  of  things?  Is  he  a  Christian,  or  is  he  a  mere 
philosophic  speculator,  or  poetic  visionary  ?  Now  here,  we 
think,  is  the  vital  defect  of  the  poem,  the  one  thing  which  pre- 
vents us  applying  to  it  the  epithet  "  great."  Mr.  Smith  is,  we 
believe,  no  infidel ;  and  his  poetry  breathes,  at  times,  an  ear- 
nest spirit :  but  his  views  on  such  subjects  are  extremely 
vague  and  unformed.  He  does  not  seem  sufficiently  impressed 
with  the  conviction  that  no  poem  ever  has  deserved  the  name 
of  "great"  when  not  impregnated  with  religion,  and  when  not 
rising  into  worship.  His  creed  seems  too  much  that  of 
Keats — 

"  Beauty  is  truth — truth  beauty." 

We  repeat  that  he  should  look  back  to  the  past,  and  think 
what  are  the  poems  which  have  come  down  to  us  from  it  most 
deeply  stamped  with  the  approbation  of  mankind,  and  which 
appear  most  likely  to  see  and  glorify  the  ages  of  the  future. 
Are  they  not  those  which  have  been  penetrated  and  inspired 
by  moral  purpose,  and  warmed  by  religious  feeling?  We 
speak  not  of  sectarian  song,  nor  of  the  common  generation  of 
hymns  and  hymn  writers,  but  we  point  to  Dante's  "  Divina 
Comedia,"  to  all  Milton's  Poems,  to  Spenser's  "  Faerie  Queen," 
to  Herbert's  "Temple,"  to  Young's  "Night  Thoughts,"  to 
Thomson's  "  Seasons,"  to  some  of  the  better  strains  of  Pope 
and  Johnson,  to  Cowper.  to  Wordsworth,  Southey,  and  Cole- 
ridge. These,  and  not  Keats,  or  Shelley,  or  Tennyson,  or 
Byron,  are  our  real  kings  of  melody ;  they  are  our  great, 
clear,  healthy  standards  of  song ;  they  are  all  alike  free  from 
morbid  weakness,  moral  pollution,  and  doubtful  speculation; 
and  the  poet  who  would  not  merely  shine  the  meteor  of  a  mo- 
ment, the  stare  of  fools,  and  the  temporary  pet  of  the  public, 
but  would  aspire  to  send  his  name  down,  in  thunder  and  in 
music,  through  the  echoing  aisles  of  the  future,  and  become  a 
benevolent  and  beloved  potentate  over  distant  ages,  and  mil- 
lions yet  unborn,  must  tread  in  their  footsteps,  and  seek  after 
the  hallowed  sources  of  their  inspiration. 

This  leads  us,  in  the  last  place,  to  give  our  young  poet  a  few 
sincere  and  friendly  counsels.  When  he  appeared  first,  he 
was,  we  know,  and  complained  that  he  was,  "  deluged  with  ad- 
vice." That  d«  luge  has  now  subsided,  and  we  would  desire, 


ALEXANDER    SMITH.  141 


in  its  subsidence,  to  try  to  collect  the  essence  of  the  moral  it 
has  left,  and  to  impress  it  on  his  serious  attention. 

We  will  not  reiterate  to  him  the  commonplaces  he  must 
have  heard,  ad  nauseam,  about  bearing  his  honors  meekly, 
and  not  being  dazzled  and  spoiled  with  success,  &c.  That 
success  has,  indeed,  been  unparalleled  for  at  least  thirty  years. 
The  last  case  at  all  in  point  was  Pollok's  "  Course  of  Time," 
but  this,  if  our  readers  will  remember,  did  not  become  popu- 
lar till  after  its  author's  premature  death  had  surrounded,  as 
it  were,  all  its  pages  with  a  black  border,  and  made  it  to  be 
road  as  men  read  the  record  of  the  funeral  of  a  king.  But 
Smith  "arose  one  morning,  and  found  himself  famous."  That 
this  sudden  glare  of  fame  on  a  head  so  young,  were  it  not  as 
strong  as  it  is  young,  might  have  produced  injurious  effects, 
was  a  matter  of  some  probability.  But  that  danger,  we  think, 
is  now  past,  and  there  are  other  dangers  more  to  be  dreaded, 
which  may  be  on  their  way. 

Mr.  Smith  should  neither,  on  the  one  hand,  rest  under  his 
laurels,  nor,  on  the  other,  be  too  eager  to  snatch  at  more.  Let 
him  deeply  ponder  on  the  subject  of  his  second  poem,  and  let 
him  carefully  elaborate  its  execution.  Let  him  mercilessly 
shear  away  all  those  small  mannerisms  of  style  of  which  he 
has  been  accused.  Let  him  burn  his  Tennyson  and  his  Keats ; 
he  has  read  them  now  long  enough,  and  further  perusal  were 
not  profitable.  He  has  lately  had  the  opportunity  of  extend- 
ing his  sphere  of  survey ;  he  has  seen  the  finest  scenery  in 
Scotland  and  South  Britain  ;  he  has  mingled  with  much  of  its 
most  distinguished  literary  society,  and  is  now  the  secretary 
to  an  illustrious  university,  and  in  the  metropolis  of  his  na- 
tive land.  Let  him  select  a  topic  for  his  new  poem  which  will 
permit  him  to  avail  himself  of  these  new  advantages,  and  let 
him  pour  into  it  every  drop  of  the  new  blood  and  every  ray 
of  the  new  light  he  has  recently  acquired.  We  rejoice  to 
learn  that  he  is  no  improvisatore  in  composition ;  that  he 
loves  to  write  slowly ;  .that  he  enjoys  the  labor  of  the  file ; 
that  almost  every  line  in  his  "  Life  Drama"  was  written  seve- 
ral times — rejoice  in  this,  because  it  assures  us  that  his  next 
work  shall  be  no  hasty  effusion,  hatched  up  by  the  heat  of  suc- 
cess, but  that  it  shall  be  a  calm  and  determined  trial  of  his 
general  and  artistic  strength.  His  styles  and  manners  are,  as 


142  A    CLUSTER    OF    NEW    POETS. 


our  extracts  have  proved,  manifold,  and  he  might  attain  mas- 
tery in  all.  But  we  would  earnestly  ask  him  to  give  us  more 
of  that  stern  Homeric  grandeur  we  find  in  his  picture,  quoted 
above,  of  the  dying  king  : — 

"  That  strain  I  heard  was  of  a  higher  mood." 

We  close  this  "  deluge  of  advice,"  if  he  will  call  it  so,  by 
other  three  distinct  counsels: — First,  let  him  advance  to 
nobler  models  than  those  he  seems  hitherto,  almost  exclusively, 
to  have  studied.  We  have  been  told  that  he  has  commenced 
a  careful  reading  of  Goethe,  which  may  be  of  considerable 
benefit  to  him  in  the  art  of  expression,  as  Goethe's  style  is 
generally  supposed  to  be  nearly  faultless.  But  let  him  not 
rest  there,  since  there  are  far  loftier  and  far  safer  ridges  on 
the  Parnassian  hill.  We  name,  as  the  models  to  which  he 
ought  to  give  his  days  and  his  nights,  Homer,  Dante,  Milton, 
Shakspeare's  sterner  tragedies,  and,  above  all,  the  poetry  of 
the  Bible.  That  he  has  read  all  these,  we  doubt  not.  What 
we  wish  him  to  do,  is  to  study  them ;  to  roll  their  raptures, 
and  to  catch  their  fire ;  to  make  them  his  song  in  the  house  of 
his  pilgrimage;  and  at  their  reverend  and  time-honored  altars 
not  only  to  kindle  the  fire  of  his  own  genius,  but  to  consume, 
as  chaff,  whatever  puerilities  may  have  hitherto  contributed  to 
lessen  the  brightness  of  the  flame. 

Secondly,  he  must  become  less  sensuous.  In  other  words, 
he  must  put  off  the  youth,  and  put  on  the  man.  He  must 
think  and  sing  less  about  "  ringlets,"  and  "  waists,"  and  "  pas- 
sion-panting breasts,"  &c.,  &c.  All  such  things  we  pardon 
in  him  now,  but  shall  be  less  disposed  to  forgive  after  a  few 
years  have  passed  over  his  head.  A  boy  Anacreon  may  be 
borne  with,  but  a  middle-aged  or  old  Anacreon  is  a  nuisance, 
especially  when  he  might  have  been  something  far  higher. 
For  the  sake  of  poetry,  let  him  proceed  to  veil  the  statue  of 
the  Venus,  and  to  uncover  those  of  the  Apollo,  the  Mars,  and 
the  Jupiter. 

Our  last  counsel  is  the  most  momentous.  He  has  himself 
painted  in  glowing  colors  his  ideal  of  the  poet  as  one  who 
shall  "  consecrate  poetry  to  God,  and  to  its  own  high  uses." 
Let  him  proceed  with  stern  and  firm  step  to  fill  up  his  own 
ideal,  and  accomplish  his  own  prophecy.  Let  him  be  the 


J.    STANYAN    BIGG.  1  43 


groat  sublime  he  draws.  Of  this  he  may  be  certain,  that  the 
poet  of  the  coming  time  must  be  a  believer  in  the  future  as 
well  as  a  worshipper  of  the  past.  He  may  not  be  a  sectarian, 
but  he  must  be  a  Christian.  We  do  not  want  him  to  write 
religious  poetry  in  the  style  of  Watts  or  Montgomery,  or  any 
one  else ;  but  we  want  him  to  devote  his  fine  powers  more 
than  he  has  hitherto  done  to  the  promulgation  of  high  spirit- 
ual truth ;  if  not,  we  foresee  that  one  or  two  of  his  competi- 
tors in  the  poetic  race,  whom  he  has  meantime  outstripped, 
may  overtake  him,  and  come  into  the  goal  amid  a  deeper  gush 
of  applause  and  of  thankfulness,  from  that  large  class  who 
now  look  upon  poetry  as  a  serious  thing,  and  are  disposed  to 
consult  it  as  a  subordinate  oracle  of  the  Most  High.  But  we 
will  not  anticipate,  far  less  despair.  The  vaticination  of  our 
hearts  tells  us  that,  apart  altogether  from  comparative  awards 
and  successes,  there  are  noble  fields  before  Alexander  Smith, 
and  that  his  own  words  shall  not  fail  of  fulfilment. 

"  I  will  go  forth  'mong  men,  not  mail'd  in  scorn, 
But  in  the  armor  of  a  pure  intent; 
Great  duties  are  before  me,  and  great  songs. 
And,  whether  crown'd  or  crownless,  when  I  fall, 
It  matters  not,  so  as  God's  work  is  done. 
I've  learned  to  prize  the  quiet  light'ning  deed, 
Not  the  applauding  thunder  at  its  heels, 
Which  mon  call  Fame." 


NO.  IIL-J.  STANYAN  BIGG.* 

THERE  are,  every  tyro  in  criticism  knows,  three  great  schools 
or  varieties  in  Poetry — the  objective,  the  subjective,  and  the 
combination  of  the  two.  The  best  specimens  of  the  first  class 
are  to  be  found  in  Homer's  "  Iliad"  and  "  Odyssey,"  in  Burns's 
poems,  and  in  Scott's  rhymed  romances;  of  the  second,  in  the 
poetry  of  Lucretius,  Wordsworth,  Coleridge,  Keats,  Shelley, 
and  some  of  the  Germans ;  and  of  the  combination  of  the  two, 
in  Shakspeare,  Milton,  Schiller,  and  Byron.  Of  late,  almost 

*  "  Night  and  the  Soul :"  a  Dramatic  Poem. 


144  A    CLUSTER.    OF    NEW    POETS. 


all  our  poets  of  much  mark  have  betaken  themselves  to  the 
subjective.  We  propose,  ere  coming  to  Mr.  Bigg,  first,  in- 
quiring into  the  causes  of  this;  and,  secondly,  urging  our 
young  poets,  by  a  few  arguments,  to  intermix  a  larger  amount 
of  the  objective  with  their  poetry. 

One  cause  of  the  propensity  of  our  rising  race  of  poets  to 
the  subjective,  has  undoubtedly  been  the  force  of  example. 
The  poets  who  are  at  present  acting  with  most  power  on  the 
young  mind  of  the  age,  are  intensely  subjective,  and  some  of 
them  to  the  brink  of  morbidity.  The  influence  wielded  over 
the  lovers  of  poetry  by  Homer,  Scott,  or  Burns,  is  slender, 
compared  to  that  which  Wordsworth,  Keats,  Shelley,  Cole- 
ridge, and  the  rest  of  the  bardic  brotherhood — the  sons  of 
Mist  by  Thunder — are  exerting.  The  writings  of  the  former 
arc  devoured  like  new  novels,  and  then  thrown  aside.  The 
writings  of  the  latter  are  tasted  slowly,  and  in  drops — are 
studied — are  carried  into  solitude — are  read  by  the  sides  of 
lonely  rivers,  or  on  silent  mountain  tops,  and  ultimately  sur- 
round the  young  aspirants  with  an  atmosphere  which  goes 
with  them  where  they  go,  rests  with  them  where  they  rest,  and 
hovers  over  their  pens  when  they  write.  To  the  charm  of 
these  poets,  it  adds  mightily  that  they  are  said  to  be,  and  are, 
more  or  less  heterodox  in  their  creeds.  This  gives  a  peculiar 
gusto  to  their  works,  the  reading  of  which  becomes  a  sweet 
and  secret  sin,  smacking  of  the  taste  of  the  "  stolen  waters" 
and  the  "  pleasant  bread."  Thus  are  two  luxuries — that  of 
the  indulgence  of  daring  thought,  and  something  resembling 
contraband  desire — 'united  in  the  perusal  of  our  later  subjec- 
tive poets. 

Secondly,  we  live  in  a  period  of  deep  thoughtfulness,  and 
great  intellectual  doubt.  Never  were  there  so  many  thinking. 
Never  was  thought  so  much  at  sea.  Never  were  there  so 
many  "  searchings  of  heart."  Our  blessed  Lord  mentions,  as 
one  of  the  most  striking  signs  of  his  second  advent — "  per- 
plexity." "And  there  shall  be  signs  in  the  sun,  and  in  the 
moon,  and  in  the  stars;  and  upon  the  earth  distress  of  nations, 
with  perplexity — the  sea  and  the  waves  roaring!"  This  sign 
is  around  us,  even  at  the  doors.  The  political  and  the  moral, 
the  intellectual  and  the  religious  worlds,  are  all  equally  per- 
plexed and  in  darkness.  It  is  a  midnight,  moaning,  weltering 


3.    STANYAN    BIGG.  145 


ocean,  on  which  we  are  all  embarked,  and  the  day-star  has  not 
yet  risen.  Our  poetical  spirits  are  sharing,  to  a  very  large 
extent,  in  this  perplexity;  and  this  has  led  to  incessant  intro- 
spective views  and  pensive  contemplations.  After  Byron,  there 
rose  a  short-lived  race  of  rhymsters,  who  pretended  to  scepti- 
cism and  gloom,  but  whose  real  object  was  to  produce  a  stim- 
ulating effect  upon  the  minds  of  their  readers ;  and  who,  like 
quack  doctors,  distributed  drugs  to  others,  of  which  they 
themselves  never  tasted  a  drop.  It  is  very  different  now.  A 
real  yearning  uncertainty  and  thirst  after  more  light,  are  now 
heard  crying,  if  not  shrieking,  in  many  of  our  poets.  All  re- 
cent poems  of  mark,  such  as  the  "  Life  Drama,"  "  Balder," 
"  Festus,"  and  "  Night  and  the  Soul, '  are  more  or  less  filled 
with  those  thoughts  that  wander  through  eternity ;  those  beat- 
ings of  strong  souls  against  the  bars  of  their  earthly  prison- 
house  ;  those  profound  questions  uplifted  to  heaven — "  Whence 
evil  ?  What  the  nature  of  man,  and  what  his  future  destiny  ? 
What,  who,  and  where  is  God  ?"  True  poets  must  sympathise 
with  the  tendency  of  their  times,  and  as  that  at  present,  is 
transitional,  uncertain,  and  uneasy,  their  poetry  must  partake, 
in  some  measure,  of  that  uncertainty  and  that  unrest. 

In  connection  with  this,  is  the  prevalent  study  of  the  trans- 
cendental philosophy  by  our  poets.  It  was  long  imagined 
that  poetry  and  philosophy  were  incompatible — that  no  poet 
could  be  a  philosopher,  and  that  no  philosopher  could  be  a 
poet.  What  God  had  often  joined  man  put  asunder.  It  has, 
however,  been  for  some  time  surmised  that  critics  were  in  this 
wrong.  The  fact  that  Milton  was  thoroughly  conversant  with 
the  philosophies  of  his  day,  and  the  example  set  by  the  Ger- 
man, poets,  and  by  the  Lakers,  who  combined  ardent  poetic 
enthusiasm  with  diligent  and  deep  study  of  metaphysics,  have 
rectified  opinion  on  this  point,  and  sent  our  young  poets  to 
their  Kants,  their  Fichtes,  and  their  Hamiltons,  as  well  as  to 
their  Shakspeares  and  their  Goethes.  From  these  and  other 
causes,  it  has  come  about,  that  at  an  age  when  the  gifted  youth 
of  the  past  were  singing  of  their  Helens  or  their  Marys — apos- 
trophising their  spaniels  and  robin-redbreasts,  or  describing 
the  outward  forms  of  sky  and  earth  around  their  native  vil- 
lage, their  successors  in  the  present  are  singing  of  the  myste- 
rious relations  of  nature  to  the  human  soul;  are  galloping 


146  A  CLUSTER  OF  NEW  POETS. 

their  Pegasus  from  galaxy  to  galaxy ;  and  are  now  entering 
the  heaven  of  heavens,  and  now  listening  to  the  sound  of  the 
surge  of  penal  fire,  breaking  on  the  "  murk  and  haggard  rocks" 
of  that  "  Other  Place." 

Now,  we  are  far  from  seeking  to  deny  that  this  is,  on  the 
whole,  what  it  should  be,  as  well  as  what,  inevitably,  it  must 
have  been.  It  were  as  vain  altogether  to  condemn,  as  at  all  to 
try  to  resist,  the  stream  of  an  age-tendency.  Nay,  this  state 
of  things  has  some  advantages,  and  teems  with  some  promise. 
It  proves  that  the  minds  of  men  are  becoming  more  serious 
and  thoughtful,  when  even  our  youths  of  genius  are  less  poets 
than  preachers.  It  shows  that  we  are  living  in  a  more  earnest 
period.  It  proves  progress,  since  our  very  youth  have  passed 
points  where  the  mature  manhood  of  the  past  thought  it  pru- 
dent and  necessary  to  halt.  It  suggests  hope,  that  in  a  future 
age  there  may  be  still  higher,  quicker,  and  more  certain  and 
solid  advancement.  But,  looking  at  the  matter  on  the  other 
side,  the  exclusively  subjective  cast  of  much  of  our  best  poetry 
has  produced  certain  evils.  In  the  first  place,  it  has  tended 
to  overcast  the  renown  of  our  great  objective  poets,  particu- 
larly among  the  young.  Homer,  Scott,  Campbell,  and  Burns, 
are  still,  indeed,  popular,  but  not  so  much,  we  think,  as  they 
were,  and  are  read  rather  for  their  mere  interest,  than  for 
their  artistic  and  poetic  excellence.  Relished  by  many  they 
still  are,  as  sweet  morsels;  but  seldom,  if  at  all,  studied  as 
models.  Secondly,  it,  on  the  other  hand,  excludes  our  really 
good  poets  of  the  subjective  school  from  many  circles  of  read- 
ers, who,  seeking  for  some  objective  interest  in  poems,  and 
finding  little  or  none,  are  tempted  to  close  them  in  weariness, 
or  fling  them  away  in  disgust.  Thomson,  Cowper,  Byron,  as 
well  as  Shakspeare  and  Milton,  addressed  themselves  to  all 
classes  "of  minds,  except  the  very  lowest,  and  succeeded  in 
fascinating  all.  Browning,  and  many  besides,  speak  only  to 
the  higher  minds,  and  verily  they  have  their  reward ;  their 
works  are  pronounced  unintelligible  and  uninteresting  by  the 
majority  of  readers,  and,  while  loudly  praised,  are  little  read. 
How  different  it  had  been,  if  these  gifted  men  hf,d  wreathed 
their  marvellous  profusion  of  thought  and  imagery  round 
some  striking  story,  or  made  it  subservient  to  some  well-con- 
structed plot !  The  "  Paradise  Lost"  and  the  "  Pilgrim's 


J.    STANYAN    BIGG.  147 


Progress"  are  devoured  by  millions  for  their  fable,  who  are 
altogether  incapable  of  understanding  their  interior  meaning, 
or  perceiving  their  more  recondite  beauties.  "  Prometheus 
Unbound,"  and  "  Paracelsus,"  are  read  with  pleasure  by  the 
more  enthusiastic,  but  are  caviare,  not  only  to  the  general 
reader,  but  to  many  thousands  who  love  poetry  with  a  passion. 
Tennyson,  on  the  other  hand,  with  all  his  subtlety  and  refine- 
ment, seldom  forgets  to  throw  in  such  touches  of  nature,  and 
little  fragments  of  narrative,  as  secure  a  kindly  reception  for 
his  poems,  at  once  with  the  severest  of  critics  and  the  least 
astute  of  schoolboys.  Why  should  poets  be  read  only  by 
poets,  or  by  philosophical  critics  ?  We  think  that  every  good 
poem  should  be  constructed  on  the  same  model  with  a  good 
sermon,  in  which  the  preacher,  if  a  sensible  man,  takes  care 
that  there  shall  be  at  once  milk  for  babes  and  strong  meat  for 
them  that  are  of  full  age ;  or  upon  the  model  of  that  blessed 
book,  the  Bible,  which  contains  often  in  the  same  chapter  the 
grandest  poetry  and  the  simplest  pathos;  here,  "words  unut- 
terable," which  seem  to  have  dropped  from  the  very  lips  of 
the  heavenly  oracle,  and  there,  little  sentences,  which  appear 
made  for  the  mouths  of  babes  and  sucklings ;  here,  "  deeps 
where  an  elephant  may  swim ;  and  there,  shallows  where  a 
lamb  may  wade  1" 

Thirdly,  this  systematic  subjectivism  is  almost  certain  to 
produce  systematic  obscurity  and  methodical  mysticism.  If 
an  original  writer  sit  down  to  compose  poetry,  either  without 
the  thought  of  any  audience,  or  with  only  that  of  a  few  supe- 
rior minds  in  view,  he  almost  inevitably  falls  into  peculiarities 
of  thought  and  idiosyncrasies  of  language,  which  suit  only  an 
esoteric  class  of  readers,  and  will  often  baffle  even  them.  If 
a  poet  only  seek  to  "  move  himself,"  leaving  it,  as  beneath 
him,  to  the  "  orator,"  to  "  move  others,"  the  consequence  will 
be  fatal,  not  only  to  his  popularity,  but  to- his  geimine  power. 
He  will  move  nobody  but  himself.  Look  again  to  Browning's 
poetry :  a  wonderful  thing  it  is,  in  many  points  and  parts ; 
but,  as  a  whole,  it  is  a  book  of  puzzles — a  vast  enigma — a  tis- 
sue of  hopeless  obscurity  in  thought,  and  of  perplexed,  bar- 
barous, affected  jargon  in  language.  The  same  is  true  with 
much  of  Emerson's  volume  of  poems.  It  is  easy  for  these 
authors  to  accuse  the  reader  of  being  dull  in  comprehension. 


148  A  CLUSTER  Of  NEW  POETS. 


The  reader  thinks  he  has  a  greater  right  to  retort  the  charge 
of  dulness  upon  the  author.  Where  fire  is,  it  shines;  where  a 
star  is,  it  beams  :  the  differentia  of  light  is  to  be  seen.  But 
the  density  of  much  of  our  modern  poetry  is  "  dark  as  was 
Chaos,  ere  the  infant  Sun  was  rolled  together,  or  had  tried  his 
beams  across  the  gulf  profound."  It  is  amusing  to  watch  the 
foclish  faces  put  on  by  the  admirers  of  this  kind  of  rhymed 
riddles  or  blank-verse  conundrums,  when  even  they  are  unable 
to  make  out  the  meaning  of  some  portentous  passage,  through 
which  not  a  ray  of  light  has  been  permitted  to  shine,  and  from 
which  grammar  and  sense  have  been  alike  divorced;  and  to 
hear  their  mumbled  apologies  to  the  effect,  "  Depend  on  it, 
there  are  sunbeams  in  this  cucumber,  provided  we  were  able 
to  extract  them  !  " 

Another  evil  is  the  increase  of  a  false,  pretentious,  and 
pseudo-philosophic  style  of  criticism,  which,  by  being  con- 
stantly exercised  upon  mystic  or  super-subtle  poetry,  becomes 
altogether  incapable  of  appreciating  any  other,  and  often  finds 
subjective  meanings,  where  the  objective  alone  was  intended 
by  the  poet.  The  great  master  of  this  art  abroad  is  Ulrici, 
whose  "  Midsummer  Night's  Dream  "  of  Shakspeare  passes 
with  many  for  a  piece  of  profound  and  unmatched  analysis. 
Specimens  of  the  class  are  rife  at  home,  and  we  deplore  the 
increase  amongst  us  of  a  style  of  criticism,  which  seeks  to 
illustrate  the  ignotum  by  the  ignotius,  as  though  midnight 
could  add  illumination  to  mist. 

What,  then,  is  it  asked,  do  we  propose  that  our  poets  should 
do  ?  Should  they,  as  Professor  Blackie  in  his  late  Stirling 
speech  seems  to  think,  abandon  subjective  song  altogether ; 
and  burning  their  Wordsworth  and  Shelley,  betake  themselves 
to  ballad-poetry,  Homer,  Scott,  and  Macaulay's  "  Lays  of  An- 
cient Rome  ?  "  By  no  means.  This  is  not  a  legitimate  con- 
clusion from  what  we  have  now  said.  There  remains  a  more 
excellent  way.  The  third  and  best  style,  combining  the  direct 
dealing,  the  definite  plan,  and  the  clear  purpose,  the  interest 
and  the  simpler  style  of  objective  poetry,  with  the  depth,  the 
thoughtfulness,  the  catholicity,  and  the  universal  references  of 
fcubjective,  should  be  attempted  by  our  rising  bards.  They 
need  not  be  at  a  loss  either  for  models  or  subjects.  All  Shak- 
epeare  may  become  their  exemplar.  Let  them  look  especially 


J.    STANYAN    BIGG.  149 


to  his  "  Macbeth,"  "  Hamlet,"  "  Lear,"  and  "  Timon,"  and 
notice  how,  in  these  masterpieces  of  his  genius,  he  has  united 
the  subtlest  reflection  and  loftiest  imagination,  to  the  liveliest 
interest  and  the  warmest  human  feeling.  How  clear  he  is, 
too,  amid  all  his  depth ;  how  direct  amid  all  his  passion  ;  and 
how  masculine  amid  all  his  subtlety,  not  to  speak  of  the  infi- 
nite variety  produced  by  his  interchange  of  the  gay  with  the 
grave — of  the  comic  with  the  tragic  elements.  Or  let  them 
study  not  Shelley's  "Prometheus,"  but  his  "Cenci;"  and 
take  not  the  monstrosity  of  the  story,  but  the  manhood  of  the 
style,  for  their  model.  Or  let  them  read  "  Wallen stein," 
and  the  other  great  dramas  of  Schiller.  Or  let  them  consult 
Byron  himself,  and  see  how,  in  "  Manfred,"  in  "  Sardanapa- 
lus,"  and  in  "  Cain,"  he  has  combined  the  deepest  thought  he 
was  capable  of,  and  admirable  artistic  management  of  style 
and  character,  with  vividness  of  individual  portraiture,  and 
intensity  of  interest.  As  to  subjects,  they  are  inexhaustible, 
as  long  as  there 'are  so  many  passages  and  characters  in  his- 
tory waiting  for  treatment;  panting,  shall  we  say,  for  that 
incarnation  which  genius  only  can  give.  We  point  at  present 
to  one, — a  gigantic  one — to  Danton.  Which  of  our  young 
poets,  our  Smiths,  Masseys,  Biggs,  and  Yendyses,  shall  win  a 
crown  of  immortal  fame,  by  writing  a  rugged  historical  drama, 
after  the  old  "Julius  Cjesar"  or  "Richard  the  Third" 
fashion,  developing  the  character  and  casting  the  proper  glare 
of  grandeur  on  the  death  of  that  wild  wondrous  Titan  of  the 
French  Revolution?  "Danton,"  said  Scott,  long  ago,  "is  a 
subject  fit  for  the  treatment  of  Shakspeare  or  Schiller." 

After  all  the  deductions  and  exceptions  implied  in  the 
foregoing  remarks,  we  cannot  but  express  our  delight  at  the 
fine  flush  of  genuine  poetry  which  the  last  few  years  have 
witnessed  alike  in  England,  Ireland,  and  Scotland.  In  a 
MS.  volume  we  find  some  sentences  written  by  us  in  the  year 
1835,  when  we  were  newly  of  age,  which  we  transcribe,  be- 
cause they  express  anticipations  which  have  been  of  late  sig- 
nally fulfilled.  "  It  is  objected,  '  People  will  not  now-a-days 
read  poetry.'  True,  they  will  not  read  what  is  called  poetry. 
They  will  not  read  tenth-rate  imitations  of  Byron,  They  will 
not  read  nursery  themes  for  which  a  schoolboy  would  be 
flogged.  They  will  not  read  respectable  commonplace.  They 


150  A    CLUSTER    OF    NEW    POETS. 


will  not  read  even  the  study-sweepings  of  reputed  men,  who 
imagine,  in  their  complacency,  that  the  universe  is  agape  for 
the  rinsings  of  their  genius.  But  neither  will  people,  if  they 
can  help  it,  eat  raw  turnips,  or  drink  ditch  water,  nor  have 
willingly  done  so,  from  the  flood  downwards,  to  our  knowledge. 
But  people  would  read  real  poetry,  were  it  given  them.  In- 
deed, an  outcry  about  the  decline  of  poetry  is  sure,  sooner  or 
later,  to  provoke  a  re-action.  It  will,  indeed,  encourage  an 
enterprising  spirit.  '  The  field,'  he  will  say,  '  lies  clear,  or  is 
peopled  only  by  Lilliputians,  supplicating  to  be  spit  upon 
rather  than  neglected.  Why  should  not  I  enter  on  it  ?'  The 
age  is  now  awake.  The  slightest  symptoms  of  original  power 
are  now  recognised.  And  we  often  figure  to  ourselves  the  rap- 
ture with  which  a  great  poet,  writing  in  the  spirit  of  his  age, 
would  now  be  welcomed  by  an,  age  whose  manuals  are  already 
Wordsworth  and  Goethe.'1'1 

No  mean  place  among  our  rising  poets  must  be  allowed  to 
J.  Stanyan  Bigg,  who  has  once  more  challenged  interest  for 
the  lake  country  of  Cumberland,  on  account  of  the  poetic 
genius  it  still  inspires  and  fosters.  He  was  born,  we  believe, 
at  least  he  now  resides,  in  Ulverston.  He  has,  we  understand, 
published  some  time  ago,  a  juvenile  volume  of  poems,  but 
this  we  have  not  seen.  Part  of  his  present  work  appeared, 
like  Smith's  "Life  Drama,"  piecemeal  in  the  "  Critic  " — that 
admirable  paper,  which  is  now,  both  in  character  and  circula- 
tion, at  the  very  top  of  the  literary  journals  in  the  metropo- 
lis ;  and  the  G-roombridges  have  now  placed  the  whole  before 
us,  in  the  shape  of  this  handsome,  portable,  and  well-printed 
volume. 

Mr.  Bigg — although  classable  in  strict  logic  and  method 
with  the  school  of  Bailey,  and  although  bearing  certain  marked 
resemblances  to  Alexander  Smith — is  yet  distinctively  origi- 
nal; being  less  mystical  than  Festus,  less  sensuous  than 
Smith — more  humane  and  more  Christian,  we  think,  than 
either.  He  shines  not  so  much  in  outstanding  passages  of 
intense  brilliance,  or  in  single  thoughts  of  great  depth,  as  in 
a  certain  rich  pervasive  spirit  of  poetry,  in  which  (to  use  the 
word  applied  to  it  by  a  generous  rival-bard)  all  his  verses  are 
"  soaked."  His  poetry  has  not  yet  gathered  into  firm  sunlike 
shape,  but  rather  resembles  what  Dr.  Whewell  in  his  "  Plu- 


J.    STANYAN    BIGG.  151 


rality  of  Worlds  "  supposes  many  of  the  stars  still  to  be — 
fiery  matter  unconsolidated,  and  having  hitherto  cast  off  no 
worlds.  Yet  the  light  and  the  fire  are  genuine,  and  may  be 
expected,  in  due  time,  to  bring  forth  results  both  useful  and 
splendid.  We  seem  to  perceive  the  following  peculiarities, 
besides,  in  Mr.  Bigg's  poetry  : — His  imagery  is  remarkable 
for  its  boldness  and  variety.  He  has  exhibited  an  equal  ap- 
preciation of  the  beautiful  and  the  sublime.  He  has  that 
noble  rush  of  thought  and  language  which  is  so  characteristic 
of  genuine  inspiration.  He  has  a  keen  perception  of  the  ana- 
logies subsisting  between  nature  and  the  mind  of  man.  And 
his  hope  in  the  destiny  of  humanity  is  founded  on  Christian 
grounds.  These  are  his  main  merits.  We  shall,  ere  we  have 
done,  notice  what  seem  his  defects. 

First,  Mr.  Bigg's  imagery  is  uncommonly  varied  and  bold. 
None  of  his  figures  are  so  striking,  or  so  highly  wrought,  as 
some  in  the  "  Life  Drama,"  but  there  is  a  greater  abundance 
and  variety  of  them.  The  nature  of  his  theme  ("Night") 
leads  him  to  select  many  from  the  scenery  of  that  season — its 
stars,  its  wailing  winds,  the  many  mysterious  sights  and 
sounds  which  haunt  its  solitudes.  But,  besides  these,  he 

fathers  analogies  from  a  thousand  other  regions,  and  skirts 
is  Night  with  a  bright  border  of  Daylight  imagery.     Here, 
for  instance,  are  some  sweet  and  soothing  figures  : — 

"  Bless  them,  and  bless  the  world.    Oh  may  it  rest 
In  peace  upon  thy  bosom,  like  a  ship 
On  the  unrippled  silver  of  the  sea, 
Or  like  a  green  tree  in  the  circling  blue 
Of  the  bright  joyousness  of  summer-morns." 

Here,  again,  is  a  rich  Arabian-Night  kind  of  fancy  : — 

"Xhou  speakest  in  soul-pictures,  yet  I  see 
Thy  meaning  rising  through  them,  free  and  simple 
As  a  young  princeling  from  the  grand  state-bed, 
Where  his  white  limbs  have  been  enswathed  all  night 
In  gold  and  velvets." 

As  a  proof  of  his  variety,  we  give  a  passage  containing,  in 
the  space  of  a  few  lines,  three  figures,  all  good,  and  all  so  di- 
verse from  each  other  : — 

"  Oh !  'twere  as  if  a  dank  dishevell'd  night 
Should  rush  up,  madly  hunted  by  the  winds, 


152  A  CLUSTER  OF  NEW  POETS. 


All  black  as  Erebus,  upon  the  steps 
Of  a  great  laughing  oriental  day. 
I  should  be  wretched  as  a  cold  lane  house, 
Standing  a  mark  upon  a  northern  moor, 
Eaves-deep  in  snow,  surrounded  by  black  pools, 
Pelted  by  winter,  ever  anger-pale, 
To  lose  you,  having  tasted  of  such  bliss, 
Such  sweet  companionship,  such  holy  joy, 
'Twere  as  if  earth  should  be  flung  back  again, 
All  singing  as  she  is,  and  crown'd  with  flowers, 
Into  the  reeking  cycles  of  her  past : 
Instead  of  valleys,  sedgy  swamps,  and  fens, 
With  grim,  unwieldy  reptiles  trailing  through, 
And  in  the  place  of  singing,  bellowings, 
And  the  wild  roar  of  monsters  on  the  hills." 

That  "  cold  lone  house,"  what  a  picture !  It  is  worthy  of 
Crabbe ;  only  Mr.  Bigg  gives  it  a  personification  more  power- 
fill  than  was  competent  to  that  poet,  and  you  feel  for  it  as  if 
it  were  a  forlorn  human  being.  How  often  we  have  regarded 
houses  in  the  country  with  similar  emotions.  One  seemed 
sheltering  itself,  and  consciously  cowering,  amid  the  woods 
which  screened  it  from  the  northern  blast.  Another  seemed 
shivering  on  a  bare  and  bald  exposure.  A  third,  of  mean 
aspect,  but  set  on  a  hill,  seemed  ashamed  of  its  exalted  beg- 
gary, and  far-seen  nakedness,  and  striving  for  ever  in  vain  to 
be  hid.  A  fourth  stood  up  with  the  majesty  of  an  Atlas,  in 
castellated  dignity  beneath  earth  and  heaven,  meeting  the 
scene  and  the  sun  like  an  equal.  A  fifth  seemed  melancholy 
amid  its  eternal  moors.  And  a  sixth,  a  ruin,  glared  through 
the  dull  eyes  of  its  broken  windows  and  dilapidated  loopholes, 
in  rage  and  defiance,  to  a  landscape  over  which  it  had  once 
looked  abroad  in  pride,  protection,  and  love. 

Secondly,  Mr.  Bigg  seems  equally  attracted  by,  although 
not  equally  successful  in,  the  beautiful  and  the  sublime.  Spe- 
cimens of  the  sublime  are  found  in  his  poetry;  one  of  the 
finest,  we  think,  is  the  following: — 

"Were  all  nature  void,  one  human  thought, 
Self-utter'd  and  evolved  in  act,  left  like 
A  white  bone  on  the  brink  of  the  abyss, 
As  the  sole  relic  of  what  onoe  had  been ; 
Thou,  who  perceivest  at  a  glance  the  all 
In  one,  who  scannest  all  relationships, 
In  whom  all  issues  meet  concentrative — 
Couldst  from  this  puny  fragment  of  thy  works 


J.    STANYAN    BIGG.  153 


Recall,  and  re-arrange,  and  re-construct 
The  mighty  mammoth-skeleton  of  things, 
And  fold  it  once  more  in  its  spotted  skin. 
And  bid  the  Bright  Beast  live." 

Another  is  this.  Speaking  of  the  pre- Adamite  earth,  he 
says — 

"  She  lay  desolate  and  dumb  as  they, 
Save  when  volcanoes  lifted  up  their  voice — 
Olden  Isaiahs  in  the  wilderness — 
And  told  unto  the  incredulous  wastes  wild  tales 
Of  the  great  after-time — the  age  of  flowers, 
Of  songs  and  blossoms,  MAN,  and  grassy  graves." 

But  it  is  in  the  region  of  the  beautiful  that  our  poet  is 
most  at  home.  He  has  watered  his  muse  at  Grasmere 
Springs,  and  at  the  placid  Lake  of  Windermere,  rather  than 
at  the  turbid  waves  of  "  grey  Loch  Skene,"  the  still,  slumber- 
ing, inky  depths  of  Loch  Avon  and  Loch  Lea,  or  the  streams 
of  the  Cona,  moaning  and  foaming  amid  the  rocks  and  gloomy 
precipices  of  Glencoe.  We  give  two  specimens  of  the  many 
beautiful  and  pathetic  strains  with  which  this  volume  abounds. 
The  following  occurs  at  page  33  : — 

"  A  fair  young  girl, 

To  whom  one  keen  wo,  like  the  scythe  of  Death, 
Had  sever'd  at  a  stroke  the  ties  of  earth — 
The  tender  trammelage  of  love  and  hope — 
And  not  released  the  spirit  from  its  clay, 
But  left  it  bleeding  out  at  every  pore, 
Clinging  with  torn  hands  to  its  prison-bars, 
And  gasping  out  towards  the  light,  in  vain. 
For  she  had  loved  and  been  deserted ;  and 
All  her  heart's  wealth  was  now  return'd  to  her 
Base  metal,  and  not  current  coin.    Her  love, 
Which  went  forth  from  her  bright  and  beautiful, 
Came  back  a  ghastly  corpse,  to  turn  her  heart 
Into  a  bier,  and  chill  it  with  its  weight 
Of  passive  wo  for  ever.    But  the  shock 
Had  turn'd  the  poles  of  being,  and  henceforth. 
In  circles  ever  narrowing,  her  soul 
Went  wheeling  like  a  stricken  world  round,  heaven. 


Eyes  she  had,  in  whose  dark  lustre 
Slumber1  d  wild  and  mystic  beams ; 

A  brow  of  polish' d  marble — 
Pale  abode  of  gorgeous  dreams — 


154  A  CLUSTER.  OP  NEW  POETS. 


Dreams  that  caught  the  hues  and  splendors 

Which  the  radiant  future  shows, 
For  the  post  was  nought  but  anguish, 

And  a  sepulchre  of  woes ; 
Therefore  from  its  scenes  and  sorrows 

All  her  heart  and  tsoul  were  riven, 
And  her  thoughts  kept  ever  wandering 

With  the  angels  up  to  heaven. 

When  they  told  her  of  the  pleasures 

Which  the  future  had  in  store, 
When  her  sorrows  would  have  faded, 

And  her  anguish  would  be  o'er; 
Told  her  of  her  wealth  and  beauty, 

And  the  triumphs  in  her  train ; 
Told  her  of  the  many  others 

Who  would  sigh  for  her  again  : 
She  but  caught  one-half  their  meaning, 

While  the  rest  afar  was  driven : 
'  Yes,'  she  murmur'd  '  they  are  happy — 

They,  I  mean,  who  dwell  in  heaven ! ' 

When  they  wish'd  once  more  to  see  her 

Mingling  with  the  bright  and  fair ; 
When  they  told  her  of  the  splendor 

And  the  rank  that  would  be  there ; 
Told  her  that  amid  the  glitter 

Of  that  brilliant  living  sea, 
There  were  none  so  sought  and  sigLed  for, 

None  so  beautiful  as  she  ; 
Still  she  heeded  not  the  flattery, 

Heard  but  half  the  utterance  given  : 
'  Yes,'  she  answer' d,  '  there  are  bright  ones, 

Many,  too,  I  know — in  heaven \ ' 

When  they  spoke  of  sunlit  glories, 

Summer  days,  and  moonlit  hours ; 
Told  her  of  the  spreading  woodland, 

With  its  treasury  of  flowers ; 
Clustering  fruits,  and  vales,  and  mountains, 

Flower-banks  mirror'd  in  clear  springs, 
Winds  whose  music  ever  mingled 

With  the  hum  of  glancing  wings — • 
Scenes  of  earthly  bliss  and  beauty 

Far  from  all  her  thoughts  were  driven, 
And  she  fancied  that  they  told  her 

Of  the  happiness  of  heaven. 

For  one  master-pang  had  broken 
The  sweet  spell  of  her  young  life  ; 

And  henceforth  its  calm  and  sunshine 
Were  as  tasteless  as  its  strife ; 

Henceforth  all  its  gloom  and  grandeur, 
All  the  music  of  its  streams, 


J.    STANYAN    BIGG.  155 


All  its  thousand  pealing  voices, 

Spoke  the  language  of  her  dreams ; 
Dreams  that  wander' d  on,  like  orphans 

From  all  earthly  solace  driven, 
Searching  for  their  great  Protector, 

And  the  palace-gates  of  heaven." 

Thirdly,  Mr.  Bigg  exhibits  that  tioble  rushing  motion  of 
thought  and  language  which  testifies  so  strongly  to  a  genuine 
inspiration,  in  which  words  seem  to  pursue  each  other,  like 
wheels  in  a  series  of  chariots,  with  irresistible  force  and  impe- 
tuous velocity.  Nowhere  out  of  "  Festus  "  do  we  find  passa- 
ges which  heave  and  hurry  along  with  a  more  genuine  afflatus, 
than  in  many  of  Mr.  Bigg's  pages.  Take  two  long  passages, 
both  of  which  are  "  instinct  with  spirit."  The  first  will  be 
found  at  page  2 1 : — 

"  The  night  is  lovely,  and  I  love  her  with 
A  passionate  devotion,  for  she  stirs 
Feelings  too  deep  for  utterance  within  me. 
She  thrills  me  with  an  influence  and  a  power, 
A  sadden'd  kind  of  joy  I  cannot  name. 
So  that  I  meet  her  brightest  smile  with  tears. 
She  seemeth  like  a  prophetess,  too  wise, 
Knowing,  ah !  all  too  much  for  happiness  ; 
As  though  she  had  tried  all  things,  and  had  found 
All  vain  and  wanting,  and  was  thenceforth  steep'd 
Up  to  the  very  dark,  tear-lidded  eyes 
In  a  mysterious  gloom,  a  holy  calm  ! 
Doth  she  not  look  now  just  as  if  she  knew 
All  that  hath  been,  and  all  that  is  to  come  1 
With  one  of  her  all-prescient  glances  turn'd 
Towards  those  kindred  depths  which  slept  for  aye — 
The  sable  robe  which  God  threw  round  himself, 
And  where,  pavilion' d  in  glooms,  he  dwelt 
In  brooding  night  for  ages,  perfecting 
The  glorious  dream  of  past  eternities, 
The  fabric  of  creation,  running  adown 
The  long  time-avenues,  and  gazing  out 
Into  those  blanks  which  slept  before  time  was ; 
And  with  another  searching  glance,  turn'd  up 
Towards  unknown  futurities — the  book 
Of  unborn  wonders — till  she  hath  perused 
The  chapter  of  its  doom  ;  and  with  an  eye 
Made  vague  by  the  dim  vastness  of  its  vision, 
Watching  unmoved  the  fall  of  burning  worlds, 
Rolling  along  the  steep  sides  of  the  Infinite, 
All  ripe,  like  apples  dropping  from  their  stems ; 
Till  the  wide  fields  of  space,  like  orchards  stripp'd, 
Have  yielded  up  their  treasures  to  the  garner, 


156  A    CLUSTER    OF   NEW    POETS. 


And  the  last  star  hath  fallen  from  the  crown 

Of  the  high  heavens  into  utter  night, 

Like  a  bright  moment  swallow'd  up  and  lost 

In  hours  of  after-anguish  ;  and  all  things 

Are  as  they  were  in  the  beginning,  ere 

The  mighty  pageant  trail'd  its  golden  skirts 

Along  the  glittering  pathway  of  its  God, 

Save  that  the  spacious  halls  of  heaven  are  fill'd 

With  countless  multitudes  of  finite  souls, 

With  germ-like  infinite  capacities, 

As  if  to  prove  all  had  not  been  a  dream. 

'Tis  this  that  Night  seems  always  thinking  of; 

Linking  the  void  past  to  the  future  void, 

And  typifying  present  times  in  stars, 

To  show  that  all  is  not  quite  issueless, 

But  that  the  blanks  have  yielded  starlike  ones 

To  cluster  round  the  sapphire  throne  of  God 

In  bliss  forever  and  for  evermore !" 

The  second,  still  finer,  meets  us  at  page  39 : — 

"  0  thought !  what  art  thou  but  a  fluttering  leaf 
Shed  from  the  garden  of  Eternity  ? 
The  robe  in  which  the  soul  invests  itself 
To  join  the  countless  myriads  of  the  skies — 
The  very  air  they  breathe  in  heaven — the  gleam 
That  lights  it  up,  and  makes  it  what  it  is — 
The  light  that  glitters  en  its  pinnacles — 
The  luscious  bloom  that  flushes  o'er  its  fruits — 
The  odour  of  its  flowers,  and  very  soul 
Of  all  the  music  of  its  million  harps — 
The  dancing  glory  of  its  angels'  eyes — 
The  brightness  of  its  crowns,  and  starlike  glow 
Of  its  bright  thrones — the  centre  of  its  bliss, 
For  ever  radiating  like  a  sun — 
The  spirit  thrill  that  pulses  through  its  halls, 
Like  sudden  music  vibrating  through  air — 
The  splendor  playing  on  its  downy  wings — 
The  lustre  of  its  sceptre-?,  and  the  breeze 
Which  shakes  its  golden  harvests  into  light- 
The  diamond  apex  of  the  Infinite — 
A  ray  of  the  great  halo  round  God's  head — 
The  consummation  and  the  source  of  all, 
In  which  all  cluster,  and  all  constellate, 
Grouping  like  glories  round  the  purple  west 
When  the  great  sun  is  low.    For  what  are  stars 
But  God's  thoughts  indurate — the  burning  words 
That  roll'd  forth  blazing  from  his  mighty  lips, 
When  he  spake  to  the  breathless  infinite, 
And  shook  the  wondrous  sleeper  from  her  dream  1 
Thus  God's  thoughts  ever  call  unto  man's  soul 
To  rouse  itself,  and  let  its  thoughts  shake  off 
The  torpor  from  their  wings,  and  soar  and  sing 


J.    STANYAN    BIGG.  157 


Up  in  the  sunny  azure  of  the  heavens  ; 

And  when  at  length  one  rises  from  its  rest, 

Like  the  mail'd  Barbarossa  from  his  trance, 

He  smiles  upon  it  in  whatever  garb 

It  is  array'd  : — whether  it  stretches  up 

In  grand  cathedral  spires,  whose  gilded  vanes, 

Like  glorious  earth-tongues,  lap  the  light  of  heaven, 

Or  rounds  itself  into  the  perfect  form 

Of  marble  heroes  looking  a  reproof 

On  their  creators  for  not  gifting  them 

With  one  spark  of  that  element  divine 

Who^e  words  they  are  ;  or  points  itself  like  light 

Upon  the  retina,  in  breathing  hues 

And  groups  of  loveliness  on  speaking  canvas ; 

Or  wreaths  itself  in  fourfold  harmony, 

Making  the  soul  a  sky  of  rainbows ;  or 

Sweeping  vast  circuits,  ever  stretching  out, 

Broad-arm'd,  and  all-embracing  theories  ; 

Or  harvesting  its  brightness  focal-wise, 

All  centring  in  the  poet's  gem-like  words, 

Fresh  as  the  odours  of  young  flowers,  and  bright 

As  new  stars  trembling  in  the  hand  of  God. 

In  all  its  grand  disguises  he  beholds 

And  blesses  his  fair  child. 

******** 

One  human  thought,  invested  in  an  act, 

Lays  bare  the  heart  of  all  humanity, 

And  holds  up,  globule-like,  in  miniature 

All  that  the  soul  of  man  hath  yet  achieved, 

Its  Paradises  Lost,  its  glorious  Iliads, 

Its  Hamlets  and  Othellos,  and  its  dreams 

Eising  in  towering  Pyramids  and  Fanes, 

To  show  that  earth  hath  raptures  heavenward  ; 

And  like  the  touch' d  lips  of  a  hoary  saint, 

Utter  dim  prophesies  of  after-worlds. 

Making  sweet  music  to  the  ear  of  God, 

Like  Memnon's  statue  thrilling  at  the  sun ; — 

And  as  the  New  Year  opening  into  life 

Is  all-related  to  the  ages,  so 

Are  man's  works  unto  thine,  Almighty  God ; 

And  as  the  ages  to  eternity, 

So  are  all  works  to  thee,  Great  Source  of  all !" 

Fourthly,  the  author  of  "  Night  and  the  Soul"  has  a  quick 
perception  of  those  real,  but  mysterious  analogies,  which  bind 
mind  and  nature  together.  The  whole  poem  is  indeed  an  at- 
tempt to  show  the  thousand  points  in  which  Night,  in  its 
brightness  and  blackness,  its  terror  and  its  joy,  its  clouds  and 
its  stars,  its  calm  and  its  storm,  comes  in  contact  with  human 
hopes,  fears,  aspirations,  doubts,  faults,  and  destinies.  For 
example,  he  says — 


158  A    CLUSTER    OF    NEW    POETS. 


"  The  solemn  Night  comes  hooded,  like  a  nun 
From  her  dark  cell,  while  all  the  laughing  stars 
Mock  the  black  weeds  of  the  fair  anchorite. 
Sorrow  is  but  the  sham  and  slave  of  joy  ; 
And  this  sweet  sadness  that  thou  wottest  of 
Is  but  the  dusky  dress  in  which  our  bliss, 
Like  a  child  sporting  with  the  weeds  of  wo, 
Chooses  a  moment  to  enrobe  itself." 

Two  beautiful  separate  strains  will  show  still  better  what 
we  mean.     One  we  find  at  page  113  : — 

"  Thou  pleadest,  love,  and  all  things  plead  ; 

For  what  is  life  but  endless  needing  ? 
All  worlds  have  wants  beyond  themselves, 
And  live  by  ceaseless  pleading. 

The  earth  yearns  towards  the  sun  for  light ; 

The  stars  all  tremble  towards  each  other  ; 
And  every  moon  that  shines  to-night 

Hangs  trembling  on  an  elder  brother. 

Flowers  plead  for  grace  to  live  ;  and  bees 

Plead  for  the  tinted  domes  of  flowers ; 
Streams  rush  into  the  big-soul'd  seas  ; 

The  seas  yearn  for  the  golden  hours. 

The  moon  pleads  for  her  preacher,  Night ; 

Old  ocean  pleadeth  for  the  moon  ; 
Noon  flies  into  the  shades  for  rest ; 

The  shades  seek  out  the  noon. 

Life  is  an  everlasting  seeking ; 

Souls  seek,  and  pant,  and  plead  for  truth  ; 
Youth  hangeth  on  the  skirts  of  age  ; 

Age  yearneth  still  towards  youth. 

And  thus  all  cling  unto  each  other ; 

For  nought  from  all  things  else  is  riven  ; 
Heaven  bendeth  o'er  the  prostrate  earth ; 

Earth  spreads  her  arms  towards  heaven. 

So  do  thou  bend  above  me,  love, 

And  I  will  bless  thee  from  afar ; 
Thou  shalt  be  heaven,  and  I  the  sea 

That  bosoineth  the  star." 

The  other  occurs  at  page  117    and  is  a  powerful  collection 
rf  gloomy  images  : — 

"  I  stand  beside  thy  lonely  grave,  my  love, 
The  wet  lands  stretch  below  me  like  a  bog  ; 


J.    STANLEY    BIGG.  159 


Darkness  oomes  showering  down  upon  me  fast ; 

The  wind  is  whining  like  a  houseless  dog ; — 
The  cold,  cold  wind  is  whining  round  thy  grave, 

It  comes  up  wet  and  dripping  from  the  fen ; 
The  tawny  twilight  creeps  into  the  dark, 

Like  a  dun,  angry  lion  to  his  den. 

There  is  a  forlorn  moaning  in  the  air — 

A  sobbing  round  the  spot  where  thou  art  sleeping  ; 
There  is  a  dull  glare  in  the  wintry  sky, 

As  though  the  eye  of  heavfin  were  red  with  weeping. 
Sharp  gusts  of  tears  come  raining  from  the  clouds, 

The  ancient  church  looks  desolate  and  wild  ; 
There  is  a  deep,  cold  shiver  in  the  earth, 

As  though  the  great  world  hunger'd  for  her  child. 

The  very  trees  fling  their  gaunt  arms  on  high, 

Calling  for  Summer  to  come  back  again  ; 
Earth  cries  that  Heaven  has  quite  deserted  her ; 

Heaven  answers  but  in  showers  of  drizzling  rain. 
The  rain  comes  plashing  on  my  pallid  face ; 

Night,  like  a  witch,  is  squatting  on  the  ground  ; 
The  storm  is  rising,  and  its  howling  wail 

Goes  baying  round  her,  like  a  hungry  hound. 

The  clouds,  like  grim,  black  faces,  come  and  go, 

One  tall  tree  stretches  up  against  the  sky  ; 
It  lets  the  rain  through,  like  a  trembling  hand 

Pressing  thin  fingers  on  a  watery  eye. 
The  moon  came,  but  shrank  back,  like  a  young  girl 

Who  has  burst  in  upon  funereal  sadness ; 
One  star  came — Cleopatra-like,  the  Night 

Swallow'd  this  one  pearl  in  a  fit  of  madness, 
And  here  I  stand,  the  weltering  heaven  above, 
Beside  thy  lonely  grave,  my  lost,  my  buried  love  !" 

Fifthly,  this  poet  deduces  a  grand  Christian  moral  from  his 
story  and  whole  poem.  Alexis,  his  hero,  after  outliving  many 
difficulties,  trials,  and  doubts,  comes  to  a  Christian  conclusion, 
in  which  he  expresses  the  following  magnificent  passage  (page 
155)  :— 

"  The  heart  is  a  dumb  angel  to  the  soul 
Till  Christ  pass  by,  and  touch  its  bud-like  lips. 
Not  unto  thee,  bold  spirit  on  the  wing, 
Does  the  bright  form  of  Truth  reveal  itself; 
Soar  as  thou  wilt,  the  heavens  are  still  above, 
And  to  thy  questionings  no  answer  comes — 
Only  the  mocking  of  the  dumb,  sad  stars. 
Awhile  thy  search  may  promise  thee  success, 
And  now  and  then  wild  lights  may  play  above. 


160  A    CLUSTER    OP   NEW    POETS. 


Which,  with  exultant  joy,  thou  takest  for 
The  gleaming  portals  of  the  homo  of  Truth — 
'Twas  but  a  mirage  where  thou  saw'st  thyself, 
And  not  the  image  of  the  passing  God ! 

Oh,  with  what  joy  we  all  set  out  for  truth — 

Newer  Crusaders  for  the  Holy  Land — 

Till  one  by  one  our  guides  and  comrades  fall, 

And  then  some  starry  night,  some  cold  bleak  night, 

We  find  we  are  alone  upon  the  sands, 

Far  from  all  human  aids  and  sympathies, 

While  the  black  tide  comes  roaring  up  the  waste. 

The  highest  truths  lie  nearest  to  the  heart ; 
No  soarings  of  the  soul  can  find  out  God. 
I  saw  a  bee  who  woke  one  summer  night, 
And  taking  the  white  stars  for  flowers,  went  up 
Buzzing  and  booming  in  the  hungry  blue ; 
And  when  its  wings  were  weary  with  the  flight, 
And  the  cold  airs  of  morn  were  coming  up, 
Lo  !  the  white  flowers  were  melting  out  of  view, 
And  it  came  wheeling  back — ah !  heavily — 
To  the  great  laughing  earth  that  gleaui'd  below  ! 
God  will  not  show  himself  to  prying  eyes  : 
Could  Reason  scale  the  battlements  of  heaven, 
Religion  were  a  vain  and  futile  thing, 
And  Faith  a  toy  for  childhood  or  the  mad ; 
The  humble  heart  sees  farther  than  the  soul. 
Love  is  the  key  to  knowledge — to  true  power ; 
And  he  who  loveth  all  things,  knpweth  all. 
Religion  is  the  true  Philosophy ! 
Faith  is  the  last  great  link  twixt  God  and  man. 
There  is  more  wisdom  in  a  whisper*  d  prayer, 
Than  in  the  ancient  lore  of  all  the  schools  : 
The  soul  upon  its  knees  holds  God  by  the  hand. 
Worship  is  wisdom  as  it  is  in  heaven  ! 
'  I  do  believe !  help  Thou  my  unbelief!' 
Is  the  last,  greatest  utterance  of  the  soul. 
God  canle  to  me  as  Truth — I  saw  him  not ; 
He  came  to  me  as  Love — and  my  heart  broke, 
And  from  its  inmost  deeps  there  came  a  cry, 
1  My  Father  !  oh !  my  Father,  smile  on  me  ;' 
And  the  Great  Father  smiled. 

Come  not  to  God  with  questions  on  thy  lips  ; 
He  will  have  love — love  and  a  holy  trust, 
And  the  self-abnegation  of  the  child. 
'Tis  a  far  higher  wisdom  to  believe, 
Than  to  cry  '  Question,  at  the  porch  of  truth. 
Think  not  the  Infinite  will  calmly  brook 
The  plummet  of  the  finite  in  its  deeps. 
The  humble  cottager  I  saw  last  night, 
Sitting  among  the  shadows  at  his  door 
With  his  great  Bible  open  on  his  knee — 


J.    STANYAN    BIGG.  161 


His  grandchild  sporting  near  him  on  the  grass, 
When  his  day's  work  was  done — and  pointing  still 
With  horny  finger  as  he  read  the  lines, 
Had,  in  his  child-like  trust  and  confidence, 
Far  more  of  wisdom  on  his  furrow'd  brow, 
Than  Kant  in  proving  that  there  is  a  God, 
Or  Plato  buried  in  Atlantis  dreams  !" 

Still  more  directly  is  the  moral  of  the  poem  stated  in  the 
following  words,  which  leave  Alexis  a  "  little  child :" — 

"  The  last  secret  that  we  learn  is  this — 
That  being  is  a  circle  after  all. 
And  the  last  line  we  draw  in  after  life, 
Rejoins  the  arc  of  childhood  when  complete  : 
That  to  be  more  than  man  is  to  be  less." 

We  need  not  dwell  on  the  identity  of  this  statement  with 
the  words  of  Jesus — "  Except  a  man  become  as  a  little  child, 
he  can  in  no  wise  enter  the  kingdom  of  heaven;"  nor  express 
our  joy  at  finding  these  words — which  are  at  present  a  stum- 
bling-block to  many,  in  this  proud  and  sceptical  age,  when 
intellect  is  worshipped  as  a  God,  and  humility  trampled  on  as 
a  slave — taken  up,  set  in  the  splendid  imagery,  and  sung  in 
the  lofty  measures  of  one  of  our  most  gifted  young  poets. 

We  have  not  analysed  the  story,  for  this  reason,  that  story, 
properly  speaking,  there  is  none.  Two  couples  are  the  prin- 
cipal interlocutors — Ferdinand  and  Caroline — Alexis  and 
Flora.  The  first  are  all  bliss  and  blue  sky  together ;  they 
seem  almost  in  heaven  already.  Alexis,  again,  is  a  kind  of 
Manfred — without  the  melancholy  end  of  that  hero.  Certain 
spirits  form  a  conspiracy  against  him,  and  lead  him  through 
wild  weltering  abysses  of  struggle — very  powerfully  described 
— during  which  he  forgets  poor  Flora,  and  a  lady  named  Edith 
dies  in  love  for  him.  When  he  returns  to  himself,  and  reaches 
the  solid  ground  of  hope,  he  returns  to  Flora  too,  and  they 
are  left  in  a  very  happy  frame — she  blessing  the  hour  of  his 
deliverance,  and  he  resuming  his  old  poetical  aspirations.  The 
poem  closes  with  a  song,  in  the  "  Locksley  Hall"  style,  on  the 
"  Poet's  Mission,"  which  is  not,  we  think,  in  the  author's  best 
manner,  and  will  be  thought,  by  many,  not  quite  in  keeping 
with  the  Christian  moral  of  the  poem  before  enunciated. 

And  now  for  fault-finding.     First,  we  state  the  want  of 


162  A  CLUSTER  OF  NEW  POETS. 


objective  interest.  "  Night  and  the  Soul"  is  just  a  heap  of 
fine  and  beautiful  things.  The  story  has  no  hinge.  The  plot 
is  nothing.  You  might  almost  begin  to  read  the  book  at  the 
end,  and  close  it  at  the  beginning.  Secondly,  there  is  no 
dramatic  skill  displayed  in  the  management  of  the  dialogue. 
A.11  the  characters  talk  equally  well,  and  all  talk  too  long. 
Ml  are  poets  or  poetesses,  uttering  splendid  soliloquies. 
Bence  inevitably  arise  considerable  monotony  and  tedium. 
Thirdly,  we  demur  to  that  Spirit-scene  altogether.  Either 
these  beings  should  have  been  described  as  doing  more,  or 
doing  less.  As  it  is,  their  introduction  is  a  mere  excrescence, 
although  it  is  redeemed  by  much  striking  poetry.  Fourthly, 
there  is  a  good  deal  of  the  hideous  in  the  poem,  imitated,  ap- 
parently, from  the  worse  passages  of  "  Festus."  We  give  one 
specimen — the  worst,  however,  in  the  volume  (page  132) : — 

"  Last  night  I  dream'd  the  universe  was  mad, 
And  that  the  sun  its  Cyclopean  eye 
Roll'd  glaring  like  a  maniac's  in  the  heavens; 
And  moons  and  comets,  link'd  together,  scream'd 
Like  bands  of  witches  at  their  carnivals, 
And  stream' d  like  wandering  hell  along  the  sky ; 
And  that  the  awful  stars,  through  the  red  light, 
Glinted  at  one  another  wickedly, 
Throbbing  and  chilling  with  intensest  hate, 
While  through  the  whole  a  nameless  horror  ran ; 
And  worlds  dropp'd  from  their  place  i'  the  shuddering. 
Like  leaves  of  Autumn,  when  a  mighty  wind 
Makes  the  trees  shiver  through  their  thickest  robes . 
Great  spheres  crack'd  in  tne  midst,  and  belch'd  out  flame, 
And  sputtering  fires  went  crackling  over  heaven ; 
And  space  yawn'd  blazing  stars  ;  and  Time  shrieked  out, 
That  hungry  fire  was  eating  everything  ! 
And  scorch' d  fiends,  down  in  the  nether  hell, 
Cried  out,  '  The  universe  is  mad — is  mad !' 
And  the  great  thing  in  its  convulsions  flung 
System  on  system,  till  the  caldron  boiled 
(Space  was  the  caldron,  and  all  hell  the  fire), 
And  every  giant  limb  o'  the  universe 
Dilated  and  collapsed,  till  it  grew  wan, 
And  I  could  see  its  naked  ribs  gleam  out, 
Beating  like  panting  fire — and  I  awoke. 
'Twas  not  all  dream  ; — such  is  the  world  to  me." 

This  will  never  do.  Fifthly,  Mr.  Bigg  appears  to  us  to 
write  too  fast  and  too  diffusely.  Many  of  his  passages  would 
be  greatly  improved  by  leaving  out  every  third  line. 


GERALD    MASSEY.  163 


This,  however,  is  an  ungracious  task,  and  we  must  hurry  it 
over.  The  author  of  "  Night  and  the  Soul"  is  a  genuine  poet 
He  has  original  genius — prolific  fancy — the  resources,  too,  of 
an  ample  scholarship — an  unbounded  command  of  poetic  lan- 
guage— and,  above  all,  a  deeply-human,  reverent,  and  pious 
spirit  breathing  in  his  soul.  On  the  future  career  of  such  an 
one,  there  can  rest  no  shadows  of  uncertainty.  A  little  prun- 
ing, a  little  more  pains  in  elaborating,  and  the  selection  of  an 
interesting  story  for  his  future  poems,  are  all  he  requires  to 
rank  him,  by  and  by,  with  our  foremost  living  poets. 


NO.  IV.-GERALD  MASSEY.* 

GERALD  MASSEY  has  not  the  voluptuous  tone,  the  felicitous 
and  highly-wrought  imagery,  or  the  sustained  music  of  Smith  ; 
nor  the  diffusive  splendor  and  rich  general  spirit  of  poetry  in 
which  all  Bigg's  verses  are  steeped ;  nor  the  amazing  subtlety, 
depth,  and  pervasive  purpose  of  Yendys's  song.  His  poetry 
is  neither  sustained  as  a  whole,  nor  highly  finished  in  almost 
any  of  its  parts ;  its  power  lies  in  separate  sparkles  of  intense 
brilliance,  shining  on  what  is  generally  a  dark  ground — like 
moonbeams  gleaming  on  a  midnight  wave.  Whether  it  be 
from  the  extreme  brightness  of  those  sparkles,  or  from  the 
gloom  which  they  relieve,  certain  we  are  that  we  have  never 
made  so  many  marks  in  the  same  compass  in  any  poem.  In- 
deed, we  have  seldom  followed  any  such  practice;  but  in 
Massey's  case  we  felt  irresistibly  compelled  to  it — his  beauties 
had  such  a  sudden  and  startling  effect.  They  rose  at  our  feet 
like  fluttered  birds  of  game ;  they  stood  up  in  our  path  like 
rose-bushes  amid  groves  of  pine.  Before  saying  anything  more 
of  this  poet's  merits  or  faults,  we  shall  transcribe  some  of 
these  markings. 

*  The  Ballad  of  Babe  Christabel,  and  other  Lyrical  Poems.    With 
additional  Pieces,  and  a  Preface.     By  GERALD  MASSEY. 


164  A  CLUSTER  OF  NEW  POETS. 


"  In  lonely  loveliness  she  grew 

A  shape  all  music,  light,  and  love, 
With  startling  looks  so  eloquent  of 
The  spirit  burning  into  view. 

Her  brow — fit  homo  for  daintiest  dreams — 
With  such  a  dawn  of  light  was  crown' d, 
And  reeling  ringlets  rippled  round 

Like  sunny  sheaves  of  golden  beams." 

'  The  trees,  like  burdcn'd  prophets,  yearn'd, 
Rapt  in  a  wind  of  prophecy." 

Hear  this  exquisite  picture  of  a  lover's  heart,  in  the  dark, 
rising  to  the  image  of  his  mistress  : — 

"  Heart  will  plead,  '  Eyes  cannot  see  her.    They  are  blind  with  tears  of  pain,' 

And  it  climbeth  up  and  straineth  for  dear  life  to  look  and  hark 
While  I  call  her  once  again ;  but  there  cometh  no  refrain, 
And  it  droppeth  down  and  dieth  in  the  dark." 

"  I  heard  faith's  low  sweet  singing  in  the  night, 
And  groping  through  the  darkness  touch' d  God's  hand." 

"  Some  bird  in  sudden  sparkles  of  fine  sound 
Hurries  its  startled  being  into  song." 

"  No  star  goes  down,  but  climbs  in  other  skies. 
The  rose  of  sunset  folds  its  glory  up, 
To  burst  again  from  out  the  heart  of  dawn ; 
And  love  is  never  lost,  though  hearts  run  waste, 
And  sorrow  makes  the  chasten'd  heart  a  seer ; 
The  deepest  dark  reveals  the  starriest  hope, 
And  Faith  can  trust  her  heaven  behind  the  veil." 

"  The  sweetest  swallow-dip  of  a  tender  smile 
Ran  round  your  mouth  in  thrillings." 

"  A  spirit-feel  is  in  the  solemn  air." 

'  Unto  dying  eyes 
The  dark  of  death  doth  blossom  into  stars." 

"  Sweet  eyes  of  starry  tenderness,  through  which 
The  soul  of  some  immortal  sorrow  looks  !" 

"  Sorrow  hath  reveal'd  what  we  ne'er  had  known, 
With  joy's  wreath  tumbled  o'er  our  blinded  eyes." 

"  Darks  of  diamonds,  grand  as  nights  of  stars." 

"  'Tis  the  old  story !  ever  the  blind  world 
Knows  not  its  angels  of  deliverance, 
Till  they  stand  glorified  'twixt  earth  and  heaven." 

"  Ye  sometimes  lead  my  feet  to  walk  the  angel  side  of  life." 

' '  Come,  worship  beauty  in  the  forest  temple,  dim  and  hush, 
Where  stands  magnificence  dreaming !  and  God  burneth  in  the  bush." 


GERALD    MASSEY.  165 


"  The  murkiest  midnight  that  frowns  from  the  skies 
Is  at  heart  a  radiant  morrow." 

"  The  kingliest  kings  are  crowu'd  with  thorn." 

"  When  will  the  world  quicken  for  liberty's  birth, 
Which  she  waiteth,  with  eager  wings  beating  the  dawn." 

''  Oh,  but  'twill  be  a  merry  day,  the  world  shall  set  apart, 
When  strife's  last  brand  is  broken  in  the  last  crown'd  tyrant's  heart !" 

"  The  herald  of  our  coming  Christ  leaps  in  the  womb  of  time  ; 
The  poor's  grand  army  treads  the  Age's  march  with  step  sublime." 

"  Yet  she  weeteth  not  I  love  her  ; 

Never  dare  I  tell  the  sweet 
Tale,  but  to  the  stars  above  her, 
And  the  flowers  that  kiss  her  feet." 

"  And  the  maiden-meek  voice  of  the  womanly  wife 

Still  bringeth  the  heavens  nigher, 
For  it  rings  like  the  voice  of  God  o'er  my  life, 
Aye  bidding  me  climb  up  higher." 

"  Merry  as  laughter  'mong  the  hills, 
Spring  dances  at  my  heart !" 

"  Where  life  hath  climaxt  like  a  wave 
That  breaks  in  perfect  rest." 


We  might  long  persist  at  this  pleasant  task  of  plucking  wild- 
flowers.  But  we  hasten  to  speak  of  some  of  the  more  promi- 
nent merits  and  defects  of  this  remarkable  volume.  One  main 
merit  of  Massey  is  his  intense  earnestness,  which  reminds  you 
almost  of  Ebenezer  Elliot,  with  his  red-hot  poker  pen.  Like 
him,  he  has  "  put  his  heart" — his  big,  burning  heart — into  his 
poems.  Mr.  Lewes,  of  the  "  Leader,"  opines  that  Massey 
wants  the  power  of  transmuting  experience  into  poetic  forms, 
and  that  nowhere  does  the  real  soul  of  the  man  utter  itself : 
two  most  unfortunate  assertions — for  the  evident  effort,  and 
often  successful  attainment,  of  this  author,  more  than  with 
most  writers,  are,  to  set  his  own  life  to  music,  and  to  express 
in  verse  all  the  poetry  with  which  it  has  teemed.  He  has  been 
a  sore  struggler — with  poverty,  with  a  narrow  sphere,  with 
doubts  and  darkness ;  and  you  have  this  struggle  echoed  in 
his  rugged  and  fiery  song.  He  has  been  a  giant  under  Etna  ; 
and  his  voice  is  a  suspirium  de  profundis.  Although  still  a 
very  young  man,  he  has  undergone  ages  of  experience ;  and, 
although  we  had  not  known  all  this  from  his  preface  and  notes 
we  might  have  confidently  concluded  it  from  his  poetry. 


166  A    CLUSTER    OF    NEW    POETS. 


In  his  earlier  poems,  we  find  his  fire  of  earnestuess  burning 
in  fierce,  exaggerated,  and  volcanic  forms.  The  poet  appears 
an  incarnation  of  the  Evil  Genius  of  poverty,  and  reminds  you 
of  Robert  Burns  in  his  wilder  mood.  He  sets  Chartism  to 
music.  He  slugs,  with  strange  variations,  "  A  man's  a  man 
for  a'  that."  But  this  springs  from  circumstances,  not  from 
the  poet  himself;  and  you  are  certain  that  progress  and  change 
of  situation  will  elicit  a  finer  and  healthier  frame  of  spirit — 
and  so  it  has  proved.  Although  his  poems  are  not  arranged 
in  chronological  order,  internal  evidence  convinces  us  that 
those  in  which  he  is  at  once  simplest  and  most  subdued  have 
been  written  last.  A  change  of  the  most  benignant  kind  has 
come  o'er  the  spirit  of  his  dream,  and  has  been,  we  beg  leave 
to  think,  greatly  owing  to  female  influence.  He  has  found 
his  better  angel  in  that  amiable  wife,  whose  virtues  he  has  so 
often  celebrated  in  his  song,  and  in  whom  he  sees  a  tenth 
muse. 

The  homage  done  by  him  to  the  domestic  affections,  his  ar- 
dent worship  of  his  own  hearth,  is  one  of  the  most  pleasing 
characteristics  of  Gerald  Massey's  poetry,  and  has  been  noticed 
by  more  than  one  of  his  critics.  It  comes  out,  not  for  the 
sake  of  ostentation,  or  artistic  effect,  but  spontaneously  and 
irresistibly  in  many  parts  of  his  poems.  We  have  great  plea- 
sure in  transcribing  words  addressed  to  him  by  an  eminent 
writer  of  the  day,  in  which  we  cordially  concur  :  "  One  ever- 
lasting subject  of  people's  poetry  is  love,  and  you  are  at  the 
age  at  which  a  man  is  bound  to  sing  it.  The  devil  has  had 
power  over  love-poems  too  long,  because  the  tastes  of  the  peo- 
ple were  too  gross  to  relish  anything  but  indecency,  because 
the  married  men  left  the  love-singing  to  the  unmarried  ones. 
Now,  love  before  marriage  is  the  tragedy  of  '  Hamlet'  with  the 
part  of  Hamlet  left  out !  Therefore  the  bachelor  love-poets, 
being  forced  to  make  their  subject  complete,  to  go  beyond 
mere  sentiment,  were  driven  into  illicit  love.  I  say  that  is  a 
shame.  I  say  that  the  highest  joys  of  love  are  married  joys, 
and  that  the  married  man  ought  to  be  the  true  love-poet. — • 
Now  God  has  given  you,  as  I  hear,  in  his  great  love  and 
mercy,  a  charming  wife  and  child.  There  is  your  school. 
There  are  your  treasured  ideas.  Sing  about  them,  and  the 
people  will  hear  you,  because  you  will  be  loving,  and  real,  and 


GERALD    MASSEY.  167 


honest,  and  practical,  speaking  from  your  heart  straight  to 
theirs.  But  write  simply  what  you  do  feel  and  see,  not  what 
you  think  you  ought  to  feel  and  see.  The  very  simplest  love- 
poet  goes  deepest.  Get  to  yourself,  I  beseech  you,  all  that 
you  can  of  English  and  Scotch  ballads,  and  consider  them  as 
what  they  are — models.  Read  '  Auld  Robin  Gray'  twenty 
times  over.  Study  it  word  for  word." 

The  poem  entitled  the  "  Bridal"  is  hardly  so  simple  as  this 
writer  would  wish ;  but,  as  a  rich  marriage-dress,  it  challenges 
all  admiration. 

We  must  quote  some  passages. 

"  Alive  with  eyes,  the  village  sees 
The  Bridal  dawning  from  the  trees, 
And  housewives  swarin  i'  the  sun  like  bees. 

Silence  sits  i'  the  belfry-choir ! 
Up  in  the  twinkling  air  the  spire 
Throbs,  as  itjlutter'd  wings  of  fire. 

The  winking  windows,  stained  rare, 
Blush  with  their  gouts  of  glory,  fair 
As  heaven's  shower-arch  had  melted  there 

But  enter — lordlier  splendors  brim, 
Such  mists  of  gold  and  purple  swim, 
And  the  light  falls  so  rich  and  dun. 

*  *  *  * 

Even  so  doth  love  life's  doors  unbar, 
Where  all  the  hidden  glories  are, 
That  from  the  windows  shone  afar. 

*  *  *  * 

Sumptuous  as  Iris,  when  she  swims 
With  rainbow-robe  on  dainty  limbs, 
The  bride's  full  beauty  overbrims. 

The  gazers  drink  rare  overflows, 
Her  cheek  a  lovelier  damask  glows, 
And  on  his  arm  she  leans  more  close. 

A  drunken  joy  reels  in  his  blood, 
His  being  doth  so  bud  and  bud, 
He  wanders  an  enchanted  wood. 

Last  night  with  weddable  white  arms, 

And  thoughts  that  throng'd  with  quaint  alarms, 

She  trembled  o'er  her  mirror' d  charms. 


168  A    CLUSTER.    OF    NEW    POETS. 


Like  Eve  first  glassing  her  new  life ; 
And  the  Maid  startled  nt  the  Wife, 
Heart-pained  with  a  sweet  warm  strife. 

The  unknown  sea  moans  on  her  shore 

Of  life ;  she  hears  the  breakers  roar, 

But,  trusting  him,  she'll  fea.r  no  more. 

*  *  *  * 

The  blessing  given,  the  ring  is  on ; 
And  at  God's  altar  radiant  run 
The  current  of  ttco  lives  in  one. 

Husht  with  happiness,  every  sense 
Is  crowned  at  the  heart  intense, 
And  silence  hath  such  eloquence ! 

Down  to  his  feet  her  meek  eyes  stoop 
As  there  her  love  should  pour  its  cup ; 
But  like  a  king,  ho  lifts  them  up. 
****** 
Alone  they  hold  their  marriage-feast — 
Fresh  from  the  chrism  of  the  priest, 
He  would  not  have  the  happiest  jest 

To  storm  her  broics  with  a  crimson  fine  j 
And,  sooth,  they  need  no  wings  of  wine 
To  float  them  into  love's  divine. 

So  Strength  and  Beauty,  hand  in  hand, 
Go  forth  into  the  honey  "d  land 
Lit  by  the  love-moon  golden-grand, 

Where  God  hath  built  their  bridal  bower, 
And  on  the  top  of  life  they  tower, 
And  taste  the  Eden's  perfect  hour. 

No  lewd  eyes  over  my  shoulder  look ! 
They  do  but  ope  the  blessed  book 
Of  marriage  in  their  hallow'd  nook. 

0,  flowery  be  the  paths  they  press ; 
And  ruddiest  human  fruitage  bless 
Them  with  a  lavish  loveliness ! 

Melodious  move  their  wedded  life 
Through  shocks  of  time  and  storms  of  strife 
Husband  true,  and  perfect  wife  !" 

How  genius  can  glorify  every  object  or  incident !  Had  Mr. 
Massey  been  describing  the  marriage  of  two  spirits  who  are 
to  spend  eternity  together,  or  the  nuptials  of  philosophy  and 
faith,  he  could  not  have  expended  more  wealth  and  splendor 


GERALD    M ASSET.  169 


of  imagery  than  he  does  upon  what  is  substantially  the  story 
of  two  children  driven  by  a  foe  or  storm  into  a  nook,  where 
they  fondle  each  other,  or  weep  in  concert,  till  the  inevitable 
enemy  comes  up  and  removes  them  both.  What  else  is  the 
happiest  mortal  marriage  ?  Still,  the  spirit  of  the  strain  is 
beautiful,  and  reminds  us  forcibly  of  the  one  song  of  poor 
Lapraik  to  his  wife,  of  which  Burns  thus  writes : — - 

"  There  was  ae  sang  amang  the  rest, 

Aboon  them  a'  it  pleased  ine  best, 
Which  some  kind  husband  had  address' d 

To  some  sweet  wife. 
It  tkirl'd  the  heart-strings  through  the  breast, 

A'  to  the  life." 

Massey  ha«  no  elements  of  the  epic  or  constructive  poet 
about  him.  He  is  simply  and  solely  a  true  lyrist,  and  as 
such  is  both  strong  and  sweet ;  but  with  sweetness  in  general, 
although  not  always,  rejoicing  over  strength— sweetness,  we 
mean,  of  thought,  rather  than  of  language  and  versification. 
Both  of  these  are  often  sufficiently  rugged,  His  sentiment 
seldom  halts,  but  his  verse  and  language  often  do.  Some  of 
his  poems  remind  us  of  the  dishevelled  morning  head  of  a 
beautiful  child.  This,  however,  we  greatly  prefer  to  that 
affectation  of  style,  that  absurd  elaborate  jargon,  which  many 
true  poets  of  the  day  are  allowing  to  crust  over  their  style. 
Even  our  gifted  friend  Yendys  must  beware  of  a  tendency  he 
lias  lately  exhibited  in  "  Balder"  to  pedantry  and  far-fetched 
forms  of  speech.  Strong  simple  English  can  express  any 
thought,  however  subtle ;  any  imagination,  however  lofty ; 
any  reflection,  however  profound;  any  emotion,  however 
warm ;  and  any  shade  of  fancy,  however  delicate.  Massey, 
in  all  his  more  earnest  and  loftier  strains,  shuns  the  faults 
of  over-elaboration  and  daintiness,  and  throws  out  diamonds 
in  the  rough.  We  may  refer,  as  one  of  the  best  specimens  of 
his  stern  and  stalwart  battle-axe  manner,  to  "  New  Year's  Eve 
in  Exile."  Hear  these  lines,  for  instance ; — 

"  Men  who  had  broken  battle's  burning  lines, 
Dealing  life  with  their  looks,  death  with  their  hands ; 
And  strode  like  Salamanders  through  war's  flame ; 
And  in  the  last  stern  charge  of  desperate  valor 
On  death's  scythe  dash'd  with  force  that  turn'd  its  edg« 
*  *  *  *  * 


170  A  CLUSTER  OF  NEW  POETS. 


Earnest  as  fire  they  sate,  and  reverent 
As  though  a  God  were  present  in  their  midst; 
Stern,  but  serene  and  hopeful,  prayerful,  brave 
AB  Cromwell's  Ironsides  on  an  eve  of  battle. 
Each  individual  life  as  clench' d  and  knit, 
As  though  beneath  their  robes  their  fingers  clutched 
The  weapon  sworn  to  strike  a  tyrant  down ; 
Such  proud  belief  lifted  their  kindling  brows ; 
Such  glowing  purpose  kunger'd  in  their  eyea. 
*  *  *  * 

The  new  year  flashes  on  us  sadly  grand, 
Leaps  in  our  midst  with  ringing  armor  on, 
Strikes  a  mail'd  hand  in  ours,  and  bids  us  arm 
Ere  the  first  trumpet  sound  the  hour  of  onset. 
Dense  darkness  lies  on  Europe's  winter  world ; 
Stealthily  and  grim  the  Bear  comes  creeping  on 
Out  of  the  North,  and  all  the  peoples  sleep 
By  Freedom's  smouldering  watch-fire ;  there  is  none 
To  snatch  the  brand  and  dash  it  in  his  face." 

This  is  masculine  writing ;  resembling  thy  first  and  be  st 
style,  0  dear  author  of  "  The  Koman  " — a  style  to  which  we 
trust  to  see  thee  returning  in  thy  future  works.  The  grandest 
poetry  has  ever  been,  and  shall  ever  be,  written  on  rocks — like 
the  stony  handwriting  traced  by  the  tribes  in  their  march 
through  that  great  and  terrible  wilderness ;  or  like  the  fiery 
lines  which  God's  hand  cut  upon  the  two  tables  of  the  law. 

We  notice  in  Massey,  as  in  all  young  poets,  occasional  imi- 
tations of  other  writers ;  nay,  one  or  two  petty  larcenies. 
For  example,  he  says, 

"  She  summers  on  heaven's  hills  of  myrrh." 

Aird  had  said,  in  his  "  Devil's  Dream," 

"  And  thou  shalt  summer  high  in  bliss  upon  the  hills  of  God." 

Again,  Massey  says, 

"  The  flowers  fold  their  cups  like  praying  hands, 
And  with  droop' d  heads  await  the  blessing  Night 
Gives  with  her  silent  magnanimity/' 

Aird  in  the  same  marvellous  dream  had  used  the  words, 

"  The  silent  magnanimity  of  Nature  and  her  God." 

In  the  same  page  Massey  says, 

"  How  dear  it  is  to  mark  th'  immortal  life 
Deepen  and  darken  in  her  large  round  eyes.' 


GERALD    MASSEY.  171 


In  Aird's  "  Buy  a  Broom "  we  find  the  following  lines, 
quoted,  however,  and  from  what  author  we  forget  — 

"  Like  Pandora's  eye, 
Whoa  first  it  darkened  uitli  immortal  life." 

In  page  51  the  following  Hues  occur  : — 

"  Wept  glorious  tears  that  telescope  the  soul, 
And  bring  heaven  nearer  to  the  eyes  of  Faith." 

We  ourselves  had  said,  "  the  most  powerful  of  all  telescopes 
is  a  tear."  These,  however,  are  really  all  the  distinct  instan- 
ces of  plagiarism  we  have  noticed ;  and,  besides  being  proba- 
bly quite  unintentional,  they  bear  no  proportion  whatever  to 
the  numerous  and  splendid  originalities  of  the  volume. 

We  have  endeavored  to  find  out  from  Mr.  Massey's  volume 
what  his  religious  sentiments  are ;  and  think  that,  on  the 
whole,  he  seems  to  have  got  little  further,  as  yet,  than  the 
worship  of  Nature.  We  can  forewarn  him  that  this  will  not 
long  satisfy  his  heart.  Nature,  to  say  the  least  of  it,  is  a 
crude,  imperfect  process,  not  a  complete  and  rounded  result, 
far  less  a  living  cause.  No  delusion  is  becoming  more  gen- 
eral, and  none  is  more  contemptibly  false,  than  a  certain 
Brahminical  worship  of  this  universe,  as  if  it  were  anything 
more  than  a  combination  of  brute  matter,  colored  by  distance 
and  fancy  with  poetic  hues.  Carlyle  has  greatly  aided  our 
young  poets  to  the  pitiful  conclusion  that  Matter  is  God. 
He  cries  out,  "  The  Earth  is  my  mother,  and  divine."  He 
says  again,  after  sneering  at  the  authority  of  the  Bible, 
"  There  is  one  book,  of  the  inspiration  of  which  there  cannot 
be  any  doubt,"  namely,  Nature ;  forgetting  that  all  the  diffi- 
culties, and  far  more,  which  beset  the  thought  that  God  is  the 
inspirer  of  the  Bible,  beset  the  notion  that  he  is  the  Author 
of  nature ;  and  that,  if  earth  be  as  a  whole  divine,  then  its 
evils,  imperfections,  and  unutterable  woes  must  be  divine, 
and  consequently  eternal  too.  We  must  warn  young  poeta 
against  that  excessive  idolatry  of  light,  heat,  law,  life,  and 
their  multitudinous  effects,  which  are  leading  them  so  terribly 
astray,  and  sowing  their  pages  with  gross  materialism,  dis 
guised  under  a  transparent  veil  of  Pantheistic  mysticism. 
They  see  Silenus  through  a  dream,  and  think  him  Pan,  and 


172  A  CLUSTER  Of  NEW  POETS. 


make  this  Pan  their  only  Grod.  Connected  with  this,  is  that 
worship  which  they  say  can  be  best  performed  without  going 
to  church,  and  the  fittest  altars  of  which  are 

"  The  mountains  and  the  ocean, 

Earth,  air,  stars — all  that  springs  from  the  Great  Whole, 
Who  hath  produced,  and  will  receive,  the  soul ;" 

forgetting  that  this  worship,  being  that  of  the  imagination, 
not  of  the  heart,  must  be  vague  and  cold ;  that  energy,  zeal, 
and  piety  have  never  in  former  times  been  long  sustained 
without  the  aid  of  public  as  well  as  of  personal  devotion  ; 
that  the  most  of  those  who  have  thus  "  worshipped  they  knew 
not  what"  in  a  manner  they  could  hardly  tell  how,  have  been 
unhappy  and  morbid  beings;  that  Milton,  whose  example 
they  often  quote,  although  he  left  his  church,  did  not  forsake 
his  Bible ;  that  Jesus  Christ,  whom  they  venerate,  while  he 
went  up  again  and  again  to  a  mountain  to  pray,  himself  alone, 
far  more  frequently  was  found  in  the  synagogues  on  the  Sab- 
bath-day; and  that,  even  on  merely  artistic  principles,  no 
finer  spectacle  can  be  witnessed  on  earth  than  a  man  of  genius 
not  retiring  into  haughty  isolation,  and  bowing  the  knee  with 
greater  pride  than  if  he  blasphemed,  but  mingling  quietly 
with  the  common  stream  of  the  multitude  which  is  pouring  to 
the  House  of  God,  and  uniting  his  voice  with  their  psalmody, 
his  heart  with  their  thanksgiving,  and  his  soul  with  their 
adoration. 

Since  commencing  this  paper  we  have  read  a  book — attrib- 
uted to  Dr.  Whewell,  and  published  by  Parker — on  "  The 
Plurality  of  Worlds."*  Years  ago,  we  had  reached  all  the 
leading  conclusions  in  this  remarkable  volume.  Its  merit  is, 
that  it  bases  what  have  long  been  our  intuitions  upon  a  solid 
foundation  of  logic  and  facts,  proving  almost  to  a  demonstra- 
tion, that  earth  is  the  only  part  of  the  creation — at  all  events, 
of  the  solar  system — which  is  yet  inhabited.  Our  object  at 
present  in  mentioning  it,  is  to  proclaim  its  value  as  a  deadly 
blow  in  the  face  of  creation-worship  and  Pantheism.  It  de- 

*  See  our  thoughts  at  greater  length  on  this  subject  in  a  recent 
article  in  the  "  Eclectic  Review,"  to  which  we  are  happy  to  say  the 
author  in  his  "  Dialogue,"  a  masterly  reply  to  his  opponents,  newly 
published,  refers  with  satisfaction. 


GERALD    MASSEY.  173 


monstrates  that  the  glory  of  the  heavenly  bodies  is  all  illusion 
— that  they  are  really  in  the  crudest  condition — that  there  is 
not  the  most  distant  probability  that  they  shall  ever  be  fit  for 
the  habitation  of  intelligent  beings — that  man  is  totally  dis- 
tinct from  all  other  races  of  beings,  and  is  absolutely,  essen- 
tially, and  for  ever  superior  to;  and  distinct  from,  the  lower 
animals — and  that,  besides,  he  shall,  in  all  probability,  bo 
renewed  and  elevated  by  a  supernatural  intervention.  It 
hints,  too,  at  our  favorite  thought  (stated  in  our  paper  on 
Chalmers,  in  this  volume),  that,  at  death,  we  leave  this  mate- 
rial creation  for  ever,  and  enter  on  a  spiritual  sphere,  discon- 
nected from  this,  and  where  sun,  moon,  and  stars  are  the 
<;  things  invisible;"  that,  to  use  the  words  of  Macintosh  to 
Hall,  "  we  shall  awake  from  this  dream,  and  find  ourselves  in 
other  spheres  of  existence."  And  all  these,  and  many  similar 
ideas,  are  not  thrown  out  as  mere  conjectures,  nor  even  as 
bold  gleams  of  insight,  but  are  shown  to  be  favored  by  anal- 
ogy— nay,  some  of  them  founded  on  fact.  We  never  read  a 
book  with  more  thorough  conviction  that  we  were  reading 
what  was  true.  Had  the  author  gone  a  step  or  two  farther 
still,  we  could  have  followed  him  with  confidence.  Had  he 
predicted  the  absolute  annihilation  of  matter,  we  could  have 
substantiated  his  statement  by  the  words  of  scripture :  "  They 
shall  perish,  but  Thou  remainest ;  yea,  all  of  them  shall  be 
changed  and  folded  up  as  a  vesture ;  but  Thou  art  the  same, 
and  Thy  years  fail  not."  Again,  we  say  that  we  deeply  value 
this  admirable  book,  as  a  tractate  for  the  times.  It  should 
be  peculiarly  useful  to  those  poets  who,  like  Mr.  Massey,  are 
constantly  raving  about  the  beauty,  the  glory,  the  immensity, 
and  the  divinity  of  Matter,  each  and  all  being  palpable  delu- 
sions, since  matter  is  neither  beautiful  nor  glorious,  nor  im- 
mense, nor  divine.  It  will  show  him  that  the  glory  of  the 
moon,  the  planets,  and  the  stars  may  be  compared  to  the 
effects  of  morning  or  evening  sunshine  upon  the  towers  of  an 
infirmary,  a  prison,  or  some  giant  city  of  sin — lending  a  false 
lustre  to  objects  which  in  themselves  are  horrible  or  foul. 

We  must  now  take  our  leave  of  Mr.  Massey.  And,  not- 
withstanding these  concluding  hints,  we  do  so  with  every  feel- 
ing of  respect,  admiration,  and  kindly  feeling.  Probably  since 
Burns,  there  has  been  no  such  instance  of  a  strong  untaught 


174  A    CLUSTER    OF    NEW    ^^ 


poet  rising  up  from  the  ranks  by  a  few  strides,  grasping  emi- 
nence by  the  very  mane,  and  vaulting  into  a  seat  so  command- 
ing with  such  ease  and  perfect  mastery.  He  has  much  yet, 
however,  to  do — to  learn — and,  it  may  be,  to  endure.  It  is 
yet  all  morning  with  him.  Life's  enchanted  cup  is  sparkling 
at  the  brim.  From  early  sufferings  he  has  passed  into  com- 
fort, domestic  happiness,  and  general  fame.  Many  veils  are 
yet  to  drop  from  his  eyes.  He  has  yet  to  learn  the  worthless- 
ness  of  human  nature  as  a  whole,  the  impotence  of  human 
effort,  the  littleness  of  human  life,  and  the  delusive  nature  of 
all  joy  which  is  not  connected  with  our  duty  to  God  and  man. 
His  present  sanguine  hopes  and  notions  of  humanity  will 
wither,  just  as  the  green  earth  and  blue  skies  will  by  and  by 
appear  altogether  insufficient  to  fill  and  satisfy  his  soul.  This 
process  we  regard  inevitable  to  all  genuine  thinkers  and  lofty 
poets  ;  but  the  great  question  is,  Does  it  result  in  souring  or 
in  strengthening  the  man  ?  Carlyle  and  Foster  both  passed 
through  this  disenchanting  process;  but  how  different  the 
results  !  The  one  has  become  savage  in  his  despair  as  a  flayed 
wild  beast.  The  other  became  milder  and  calmer  in  propor- 
tion to  the  depth  of  his  melancholy.  And  the  reason  of  this 
difference  is  very  simple.  Carlyle  believes  in  nothing  but  the 
universe.  Foster  believed  in  a  Father,  a  Savior,  and  a  future 
world.  If  Mr.  Massey  comes  (as  we  trust  he  shall)  to  a  true 
belief,  it  will  corroborate  him  for  every  trial  and  every  sad 
internal  or  external  experience,  and  he  will  stand  like  an 
Atlas  above  the  ruins  of  a  world,  calm,  firm,  pensive,  but 
pressing  ^prwards,  and  looking  on  high* 

*  Since  this  paper  was  written,  we  have  read  some  specimens  of 
Massey's  prose,  in  his  preface  to  his  third  edition,  and  in  his  review 
of  "  Balder"  in  the  "  Eclectic."  It  is  most  excellent,  clear,  massive, 
masterly  English,  very  refreshing  in  this  age  of  mystical  fudge. 


(xfosra 


NO.  I.-1IAZLITT  AND  HALLAM. 

WE  have  chosen  the  above  two  names  as  representing  two 
opposite  styles  of  criticism — the  impulsive  and  the  mechanical 
— or,  otherwise,  the  genial  and  the  learned.  In  speaking  of 
Hazlitt,  we  have  nothing  to  do  with  him  as  a  man,  a  politi- 
cian, or  a  historian,  but  simply  as  a  critic;  and,  in  speaking 
of  Hallam,  we  have  nothing  to  do  with  him  as  a  historian,  but 
solely  as  the  writer  of  those  literary  criticisms  which  haye  re- 
cently been  collected  into  a  separate  publication. 

William  Hazlitt  was  brutally  abused  while  alive,  and  has 
been  but  partially  appreciated  since  his  death.  Indeed,  in 
many  quarters  he  seems  entirely  forgotten.  Sacrificing,  as  he 
did,  popular  applause  in  search  of  posthumous  fame,  he  seems 
to  have  lost  both — like  the  dog  in  the  fable,  shadow  and  sub- 
stance seem  alike  to  have  given  him  the  slip.  Our^  proud  and 
prosy  Quarterlies,  while  showering  praise  on  the  misty  no- 
things which  often  now  abuse  the  name  of  scientific  or  philo- 
sophic criticism — those  compounds  of  natural  and  acquired 
dulness  which  disguise  themselves  under  German  terminology, 
and  are  deemed  profound — seldom  name,  or  coldly  underrate, 
the  glowingly  acute,  gorgeously  clear,  and  dazzlingly  deep 
criticisms  of  poor  Hazlitt. 

Harry  Cockburn  thinks  him  ineffably  inferior  to  Lord  Jef- 
frey. Macaulay  first  steals  from  Hazlitt,  and  then  puffs  Hal- 
lam.  Bulwer  and  Talfourd  have  done  him  justice,  but  rather 
in  a  patronising  way.  Home  did  his  best  to  imitate  him,  and 
paid  back  the  pilferings  in  praise.  But  De  Quincey  and  one 


176  MODERN    CRITICS. 


or  two  more  seem  alone  aware  of  the  fact  that  no  thinker  of 
such  rich  seminal  mind — of  such  genuine  originality,  insight, 
and  enthusiasm,  has  been  ever  so  neglected  or  outraged  as  the 
author  of  "  The  Spirit  of  the  Age." 

Hazlitt  was,  in  many  respects,  the  most  natural  of  critics. 
lie  was  born  to  criticise,  not  in  a  small  and  captious  way,  but 
as  a  just,  generous,  although  stern  and  rigorous  judge.  Nature 
had  denied  him  great  constructive,  or  dramatic,  or  syn- 
thetic power — the  power  of  the  highest  kind  of  poet  or  phi- 
losopher. But  he  possessed  that  mixture  m  proper  propor- 
tions of  the  acute  and  the  imaginative,  the  profound  and  the 
brilliant,  the  cool  and  the  enthusiastic,  which  goes  to  consti- 
tute the  true  critic.  Hence  his  criticism  is  a  fine  compound 
— pleasing,  on  the  one  band,  tbe  lover  of  analysis,  who  feels 
that  its  power  can  go  no  farther ;  and,  on  the  other,  the  young 
and  ardent  votary  of  literature,  who  feels  that  Hazlitt  has 
expressed  in  language  what  he  only  could  "  with  the  faltering 
tongue  and  the  glistening  eye."  When  he  has  a  favorite,  and 
especially  an  old  favorite  author  to  discuss,  it  becomes  as 
great  a  luxury  to  witness  as  to  feel  his  rapture.  Even  elder- 
ly enthusiasts,  whose  ardor  is  somewhat  passee,  might  contem- 
plate him  with  emotions  such  as  Scott  has  so  exquisitely  des- 
cribed in  Louis  XI,  when  looking  at  the  hungry  Quentin 
Durward  devouring  his  late  and  well-won  breakfast.  Youth 
— hot,  eager,  joyous  youth — sparkles  in  Hazlitt's  best  criti- 
cisms even  to  the  last.  And  yet,  beside  all  his  bursts  and 
bravuras,  there  is  always  looking  on  the  stern,  clear,  piercing 
eye  of  Old  Analysis.  Why  is  it  that  Hazlitt,  thus  eminently 
fitted  to  attract  all  classes,  has  failed  to  be  generally  popular  ? 
Many  answers  might  be  given  to  this  question.  There  was 
first  the  special  victimisation  he  underwent  during  his  lifetime 
from  the  reviews  and  magazines.  Old  Gilford  was  his  bitter- 
est, although  by  no  means  his  ablest  opponent.  The  power 
wielded  thirty  years  ago  by  that  little  arid  mass  of  common- 
place and  dried  venom  is,  to  us,  absolutely  marvellous.  The 
manner  in  which  he  exercised  the  critical  profession  showed, 
indeed,  that  he  was  perfectly  skilled  in  his  former  one,  espe- 
cially in  the  adroit  use  of  the  awl.  He  was  admirable  at  bor- 
ing small  holes  ;  but  beyond  this  he  was  nothing.  If  Shak-r 
speare's  works  had  appeared  in  his  time,  he  would  have  treated 


HAZLITT    AND    HALLAM.  177 


them  precisely  as  he  treated  Shelley's  and  Keats',  unless, 
indeed,  they  had  been  submitted  to  his  revision  before,  or  ded- 
icated to  him  at  publication.  Otherwise,  how  he  would  have 
ostracised  "  Othello ;"  mauled  "Macbeth;"  torn  up  "The 
Tempest;"  mouthed,  like  a  dog  at  the  moon,  against  the 
"  Midsummer  Night's  Dream;"  laughed  at  "  Lear;"  raved  at 
"  Romeo  and  Juliet;"  and  admitted  merit  only  in  "  Timon," 
because  it  suited  his  morbid  temper,  and  in  the  "  Comedy  of 
Errors,"  because  it  melted  down  his  evil  humors  into  grim 
laughter.  It  is  lamentable  to  think  of  such  a  man  being  res- 
pected by  Byron,  and  feared  by  Hunt  and  Lamb.  It  is  more 
lamentable  still,  to  remember  that  he  and  his  coadjutors  were 
able  to  half-madden  Shelley,  to  kill  Keats,  and  to  add  gall 
and  wormwood  to  the  native  bitterness  of  Hazlitt's  spirit. 

But  he  had  other  opponents,  who,  if  not  animated  by  all 
Grifford's  spirit,  had  ten  times  the  talent.  Wilson  and  Lock- 
hart  bent  all  their  young  power  against  a  writer  whom  both 
in  their  hearts  admired,  and  from  whom  both  had  learned 
much.  The  first  twenty-five  volumes  of  "  Blackwood's  Mag- 
azine" are  disgraced  by  incessant,  furious,  and  scurrilous  at- 
tacks upon  the  person,  private  character,  motives,  talents,  and 
moral  and  religious  principles  of  Hazlitt,  which  future  ages 
shall  regard  with  wonder,  indignation,  and  disgust.  "  Ass," 
"  blockhead,"  "fool,"  "idiot,"  "quack,"  "  villian,"  "  infidel," 
&c.,  are  a  specimen  of  the  epithets  applied  to  this  master- 
spirit. "  Old  Maga"  has  greatly  improved  in  this  respect 
since;  but  there  is  at  least  one  of  its  present  contributors 
who  would  perpetrate,  if  he  durst,*  similar  enormities  of  in- 
justice, and  whose  maximum  of  will  to  injure  and  abuse  all 
minds  superior  to  his  own,  is  only  restrained  by  his  minimum 
of  power.  Need  we  name  the  laureate  of  Clavers,  and  the 
libeller  of  the  noble  children  of  the  Scottish  Covenant  ? 

We  see  nothing  wrong  in  genius  now  and  then  turning 
round  to  rend  and  trample  on  its  pertinacious  foes.  But 
Hazlitt  was  far  too  thin-skinned.  He  felt  his  wounds  too 
keenly,  he  acknowledged  them  too  openly,  and  gave  thus  a 

*  He  has  since  dared !  Vide  that  tissue  of  filthy  nonsense,  which 
none  but  an  ape  of  the  first  magnitude  could  have  vomited,  yclept 
"  Firmilian." 


1 78  MODERN     CRITICS. 


great  advantage  to  his  opponents.  This  was  partly  accounted 
for  from  his  nervous  temperament,  and  partly  from  his  preca- 
rious circumstances.  It  was  very  easy  for  Lord  Jeffrey,  sitting 
in  state  in  his  palace  in  Moray  Place,  to  curl  his  lip  in  cool  con- 
tempt, or  even  to  burst  outjnto  laughter,  over  attacks  on  himself 
in  "Ebony  ;"  or  for  Wordsworth,  in  his  drawing-room  on  Rydal 
Mount,  to  grumble  over  the  "  Edinburgh,"  ere  dashing  it  to 
the  other  side  of  the  room ;  it  is  very  easy  still,  for  those  of 
us  who  are  not  dependent  for  subsistence  on  our  writings,  to 
treat  insolent  injustice  with  pity  or  scorn ;  but  the  tendency 
of  such  attacks  upon  Hazlitt  was  to  snatch  the  bread  from 
his  mouth,  to  lower  the  opinion  of  his  capacity  with  the  book- 
sellers, whose  serf  he  was,  and  to  drive  him  to  mean  subter- 
fuges, which  his  soul  abhorred,  to  prevent  him  literally  from 
starving.  He  is  said,  a  little  before  his  death,  to  have  met 
Home,  and  said  to  him,  "  I  have  carried  a  volcano  in  my 
breast  for  the  last  three  hours  up  and  down  Pall  Mall ;  I 
have  striven  mortally  to  quench,  to  quell  it,  but  it  will  not. 
Can,  you  lend  me  a  shilling  ?  I  have  not  tasted  food  for  two 
days.'''' 

Want  of  thorough  early  training,  an  unsettled  and  wander- 
ing life,  want  of  time  for  systematic  study,  and  want  of  self- 
control  and  of  domestic  happiness,  combined  to  lessen  the  ar- 
tistic merit,  and  have  limited  to  some  extent  the  permanent 
power,  of  Hazlitt's  writings.  Hence  they  are  full  of  faults 
— the  faults  never,  however,  of  weakness,  but  of  haste,  care- 
lessness and  caprice.  They  swarm  with  gossiping  anecdote, 
with  flashy  clap-trap,  with  egotism,  with  jets  of  bitterest  ven- 
om, and  with  sounding  paradoxes.  They  are  cast  chiefly,  too,  in 
the  form  of  slipshod  essays ;  nor  has  he  ever  completed  any 
great,  solid,  separate  work,  for  his  "  Life  of  Napoleon"  is  not 
worthy  of  his  powers.  His  superficial  readers — especially  if 
their  minds  have  been  previously  poisoned  by  reading  the 
"  Quarterly"  and  "  Blackwood" — fasten  on  these  faults,  and 
never  get  farther.  "  An  amusing,  flimsy  writer"  is  the  high- 
est compliment  they  find  in  their  hearts  to  bestow  on  one  of 
the  finest  and  deepest  thinkers  of  the  day.  Our  misty  G-er- 
manisers,  again,  find  him  too  clear,  too  brilliant,  not  sufficiently 
conversant  with  Kant,  Fichte,  Schiller,  and  Goethe,  and  vote 
him  obsolete.  Carlyle  classes  him  with  Dermody  in  one  pa- 


HAZLITT    AND    HALLAM.  179 


per,  and  in  another  talks  of  him  in  such  terms  as  these  :  "How 
many  a  poor  Hazlitt  must  wander  over  God's  verdant  earth, 
like  the  unblest  over  burning  deserts — passionately  dig  wells, 
and  draw  up  only  the  dry  quicksand,  and  at  last  die  and 
make  no  sign."  Such  injustice  is  too  rank  long  to  continue 
rampant.  Hazlitt,  as  a  man,  had  errors  of  no  little  magni- 
tude ;  but  he  was  as  sincere  and  honest  a  being  as  ever  breath- 
ed. If  not  practically  a  Christian,  he  respected  Christianity  ; 
he  saw,  though  he  shrank  from,  its  unique  and  glorious  char- 
acter ;  he  owned  its  unparalleled  power ;  he  has  praised  its 
Bible  with  all  the  enthusiasm  of  his  heart,  and  with  all  the 
riches  of  his  genius ;  and  he  would  have  burned  his  pen  and 
the  hand  that  held  it,  sooner  than  have  set  himself  deliber- 
ately to  sap  by  written  inuendo,  or  blow  up  by  open  outrage, 
the  faith  in  which  his  good  old  parents  died.  His  writings 
constitute  one  of  those  quarries  of  thought,  such  as  are  also 
Bacon's  "  Essays,"  Butler's  "  Sermons,"  Boswell's  "  John- 
son," and  Coleridge's  "  Table  Talk."  They  abound  in  gems, 
as  sparkling  as  they  are  precious,  and  ever  and  anon  a  "  moun- 
tain of  light"  lifts  up  its  shining  head.  Not  only  are  they 
full  of  profound  critical  dicta,  but  of  the  sharpest  observa- 
tions upon  life  and  manners,  upon  history,  and  the  metaphy- 
sics of  the  human  mind.  Descriptions  of  nature,  too,  are 
there,  cool,  clear,  and  refreshing  as  summer  leaves.  And  then 
how  fine  are  his  panegyrics  on  the  old  masters  and  the  old  po- 
ets !  And  ever  and  anon  he  floats  away  into  long  glorious 
passages,  such  as  that  on  Wordsworth  and  that  on  Coleridge, 
in  the  "  Spirit  of  the  Age" — such  as  his  description  of  the 
effects  of  the  Reformation — such  as  his  panegyric  on  poetry — 
his  character  of  Sir  Thomas  Browne — and  his  picture  of  the 
Reign  of  Terror  !  Few  things  in  the  language  are  greater 
than  these.  They  resemble 

"  The  long-resounding  march  and  energy  divine" 

of  the  ancient  lords  of  English  prose — the  Drydens,  the 
Browns,  the  Jeremy  Taylors,  and  the  Miltons. 

All  so-called  "  beauties"  of  great  authors  we  detest.  They 
are  as  dull  as  almanacs  or  jest-books.  They  are  but  torn 
fallen  feathers  from  the  broad  eagle-wing.  Nor  do  we  mean 


180  MODERN  cranes. 


to  suggest  that  Hazlitt's  works  should  be  subjected  to  such  an 
equivocal  process.  But  we  should  like  to  see  his  "  Select 
Works,"  including  a  selection  from  his  essays,  the  whole  of  his 
"  Characteristics,"  and  his  "  Characters  of  Shakspeare's  Plays" 
— all  his  lectures  delivered  at  the  Surrey  Institution — a  se- 
lection from  his  purely  metaphysical  works — certain  passages 
from  his  "  Life  of  Napoleon" — copious  excerpts  from  his  pic- 
torial criticisms — and  his  "  Spirit  of  the  Age"  entire.  It  is  a 
disgrace  to  literature  ;  and  while  there  are  cheap  editions  of 
Lamb  and  Hunt,  aud  clear  editions  of  Jeffrey,  Smith,  and  Ma- 
cauley,  there  is  no  good  edition  we  know  of,  whether  cheap  or 
dear,  of  the  works  of  a  far  more  original  thinker,  eloquent 
writer,  and  earnest  man,  than  any  of  them  all. 

We  will  allude  but  to  one  other  feature  in  Hazlitt's  critical 
character — we  mean  his  attachment  to  Shakspeare  and  Cole- 
ridge. Others  admire  Shakspeare — Hazlitt  loves  and  adores 
him ;  and  this  soft  key  of  love  opens  to  him  many  an  intricate 
lock,  and  this  deep  light  of  adoration  leads  him  safe  through 
many  a  dark  and  winding  way.  Many  prefer  Ulrici,  although, 
in  fact,  his  work  is  just  a  "  Midsummer  Night's  Dream1''  of 
Shakspeare.  It  is  not  Shakspeare  himself — the  clear  and 
manly  Englishman,  as  well  as  the  universal  genius — it  is 
Shakspeare  seen  through  the  mists  of  the  Brocken,  casting  an 
enormous  shadow,  which  is  mistaken  for  and  criticised  as  the 
substance.  Indeed,  we  can  conceive  no  spectacle  more  ludic- 
rous than  that  of  Shakspeare  in  the  shades  reading  Ulrici,  and 
marvelling  to  find  that  he  understood  him  so  much  better  than 
himself,  and  saw  more  in  him  than  he  ever  intended — nay, 
often  the  reverse  of  what  he  did  intend. 

Hazlitt  read  Shakspeare  with  far  greater  perspicacity ;  saw 
his  faults,  and  liked  him  better  for  them  ;  took  him  at  his 
word,  believed  what  he  said,  and  did  not  go  about  stumbling 
and  groping  for  recondite  meanings  and  merits  in  its  author. 
Shakspeare  has  now  a  great  gallery  of  critics  : — Johnson,  witli 
his  sturdy  generalities  of  encomium ;  Mrs.  Montague,  with  her 
elegant  and  lady-like,  if  not  very  profound  tribute ;  Joseph 
Warton's  graceful  papers  in  the  "  Adventurer,"  as  well  as  hid 
brother's  more  elaborate  testimony  in  his  "  History  of  Eng- 
lish Poetry;"  G-oethe,  in  his  fine  remarks  on  "Hamlet"  in 
"  Wilhelm  Meister;"  George  Moir,  in  his  refined  and  thought- 


IIAZLITT    AND    HALLAM.  181 


ful  "  Shakspeare  in  Germany  ;"  Mrs.  Jameson  ;  De  Quincey  ; 
Carlyle's  striking  sketch;  Coleridge's  wondrous  talk  about 
him;  Hartley  Coleridge's  "  Shakspeare  a  Tory  and  a  Gentle- 
man ;"  Professor  Wilson's  scattered  splendors  on  the  subject 
in  the  "  Noctes,"  &c.  But  love  for  the  subject,  profound  and 
watchful  study  of  it,  the  blended  intellect  and  ardor  of  his 
nature,  and  the  graces  and  powers  of  his  style,  render  Haz- 
litt,  in  our  judgment,  the  best  limner  of  that  standing  wonder 
of  the  world ;  and  to  his  warm  and  living  portraits  we  most 
fondly  and  frequently  recur. 

Coleridge,  too — a  man  resembling  Shakspeare  in  width  and 
subtlety,  although  not  in  clearness  and  masculine  strength  and 
directness — was  seen  by  Hazlitt  as  few  else  saw  him,  and  shown 
by  him  more  eloquently  and  enthusiastically  than  by  any  or 
all  his  other  critics.  He  knew  him  in  his  youth.  He  met 
him  first  at  Wem,  in  Shropshire,  where  his  father  was  minis- 
ter ;  and  most  beautifully  has  he  described,  in  his  "  First  Ac- 
quaintance with  Poets,"  his  meeting  with  the  "  noticeable  man 
with  large  grey  eyes."  'Tis  to  us  the  most  delightful  of  all 
Hazlitt's  essays,  striking  as  it  does  on  some  of  our  own  early 
associations.  Like  Hazlitt,  the  author  of  this  sketch  was  the 
son  of  a  dissenting  (though  not  a  Unitarian)  minister ;  like 
him,  spent  many  a  sad  and  solitary  hour  in  the  country,  cheer- 
ed, indeed,  by  books  and  by  the  loveliness  and  grandeur  of 
nature  ;  like  him,  has  "  shed  tears  over  his  unfinished  manu- 
script," while  in  vain  seeking  adequately  to  transcribe  his  con- 
fused but  burning  impressions  of  nature  and  of  literature  ;  and, 
like  him,  has  again  and  again  been  delighted  and  raised  from 
the  dust  by  the  visits  and  sermons  of  gifted  preachers,  who 
came  like  sunbeams  to  the  sequestered  valley  of  his  birth ; 
and  he  can  hardly,  therefore,  read  "  My  First  Acquaintance 
with  Poets,"  or  several  other  of  Hazlitt's  autobiographical 
essays,  without  a  swelling  heart  and  streaming  eyes,  as  he 
thinks  of  the  days  of  his  own  boyhood. 

No  man  has  better  described  than  Hazlitt,  Coleridge's 
after  career,  which  was  that  of  a  comet  among  comets,  more  ec- 
centric than  all  its  lawless  kindred  ;  now  assuming  the  fcrni 
of  a  thin  and  gaseous  vapor,  and  now  becoming  blood-red, 
solid-seeming,  and 

"  Firing  the  length  of  Ophiuchus  huge 
In  the  Arctic  sky." 


MODERN    CRITICS 

Let  it  ever  be  remembered  that  he  fought  the  battle  of 
Coleridge's  fame,  when  he  was  under  the  cloud  of  public  opin- 
ion, and  of  the  opium  curse;  and  that,  although  separated 
from  him  afterwards  by  political  and  other  differences,  he 
never  ceased  to  be  his  ardent  eulogist,  as  well  as  his  honest 
adviser. 

Peace  to  the  memory  of  William  Hazlitt !  That  pale,  hag- 
gard face ;  those  eager,  restless  eyes ;  those  dark,  grey  locks  ; 
that  brain,  ever  prolific  of  new  thoughts ;  and  that  heart,  ever 
palpitating  with  new,  fierce,  or  rapturous  passions — are  now 
all  still  and  quenched  in  the  sepulchre.  We  dare  rear  no 
temple  over  his  dust — nor  is  it  worthy  of  a  pyramid ;  but  his 
works  form,  nevertheless,  a  noble  monument— solid  as  marble, 
and  clear  and  brilliant  as  flame — expressing  at  once  the  strength 
and  the  splendor  of  his  unrivalled  critical  genius. 

In  point  of  learning,  culture,  calmness,  and  the  command 
of  the  powers  he  has,  Hallam,  of  course,  excels  Hazlitt,  even 
as  a  bust  is  much  smoother  than  a  man's  head  ;  but  he  is  al- 
together destitute  of  that  fine  instinctive  sense  of  poetic  beauty 
which  was  in  Hazlitt's  mind,  and  of  that  eloquent,  fervid,  and 
fearless  expression  of  it  which  came,  like  inspiration,  into  Haz- 
litt's pen.  The  "gods  have  not  made  him  poetical;"  and 
when  he  talks  about  poetry,  you  are  reminded  of  a  blind  man 
discoursing  on  the  rainbow.  He  has  far  too  much  tact  and 
knowledge  to  commit  any  gross  blunder — nay,  the  bust  seems 
often  half-alive,  but  it  never  becomes  more.  You  never  feel 
that  this  man,  who  talks  so  ably  about  politics,  and  evidence, 
and  international  law,  has  a  "  native  and  indefeasible  right"  to 
speak  to  you  about  poetry.  The  power  of  criticising  it  is  as 
completely  denied  him  as  is  a  sixth  sense ;  and  worst,  he  iti 
not  conscious  of  the  want. 

For  he  has  often  essayed  to  criticise  our  greatest  poets,  and 
has  displayed  intimate  knowledge  of  their  writings,  and  of  the 
ages  in  which  they  lived.  But  it  is  merely  mechanical  know- 
ledge. He  knows  poets  by  head-mark,  not  by  heart-recogni- 
tion. He  may  see,  but  he  scarcely  feels,  their  beauties.  He 
is  not,  indeed,  one  of  those  pitiful  small  snarlers,  with  micro- 
scopic eyes,  who  pick  out  petty  faults  in  works  of  genius, 
blunders  in  syntax,  perhaps,  mixed  metaphors,  and  so  on,  and 
present  such  splinters  as  adequate  specimens  of  the  building. 


HAZL1TT    AND    HALLAM.  183 


Nor  is  he,  like  Dr.  Johnson,  furnished  with  a  blazing  Cyclo- 
pean orb  on  one  side  of  his  head,  and  an  eye  totally  blind  on  the 
other,  so  that  his  judgments,  according  to  his  position,  are 
now  the  truest,  and  now  the  falsest,  in  literature — now  final 
as  the  laws  of  the  Medes,and  now  contemptible  as  the  opinions 
of  schoolboys.  Hallam  is  seldom  unduly  minute,  never  un- 
fair, and  rarely  one-sided ;  his  want  is  simply  that  of  the  warm 
insight  which  "  loosens  the  bands  of  the  Orions"  of  poetry, 
and  gives  a  swift  solution  of  all  its  splendid  problems. 

His  paper  on  Ariosto  is  correct  and  creeping;  although, 
surely,  we  must  demur  to  his  dictum  that  he  was  surpassed 
only  by  three  of  his  predecessors — Homer,  Virgil,  and  Dante. 
Has  he  forgotten  ^schylus,  Sophocles,  and  Lucretius  ?  In 
his  remarks  on  Tasso  (which  are  otherwise  good,  Tasso  being 
quite  the  artificial  poet  that  Hallam  can  fully  appreciate),  he 
rather  paradoxically  says  that  "  the  '  Jerusalem'  is  the  great 
epic  poem,  in  the  strict  sense,  of  modern  times."  Is  Milton 
not  a  modern,  and  in  what  strict  sense  is  u  Paradise  Lost"  not 
an  epic  ?  What  condition  of  the  Epos  does  it  not  fulfil  ?  His 
remarks  on  "  Don  Quixote"  are  poor,  compared  to  Hazlitt's 
on  the  same  subject  in  his  paper  on  "  Standard  Novels,"  which 
appeared  in  the  "  Edinburgh  Review."  His  paper  on  Spenser 
is  judicious,  and,  on  the  whole,  accurate,  but  has  a  general 
coldness  of  tone  insufferable  in  reference  to  such  a  rich  and 
imaginative  writer,  and  contains  one  or  two  hyper-criticisms. 
For  instance,  he  objects  to  the  much  admired  description  of  a 
forest — 

"  The  sailing  pine,  the  cedar  proud  and  tall, 
The  vine-prop  elm,  the  poplar  never  dry, 
The  builder  oak,  sole  king  of  forests  all, 
The  aspine  good  for  staves,  the  cypress  funeral ;" 

because,  forsooth,  a  natural  forest  never  contains  such  a  vari- 
ety of  species  !  This  is  sad  work.  Has  he  forgotten  that  the 
"Fairy  Queen"  is  not  merely  a  poem,  but  a  dream;  and 
should  not  a  dream  have  its  own  dream-scenery  ?  We  call 
his  attention  to  the  following  passage  from  Addison — a  critic 
of  a  very  different  order — a  passage  not  less  distinguished  by 
its  philosophic  truth,  than  by  its  exquisite  beauty : — 

"  The  poet  is  not  obliged  to  attend  nature  in  the  slow  ad- 


1S4  MODERN    CRITICS. 


vances  she  makes  from  one  season  to  another,  or  to  observe 
her  conduct  in  the  successive  production  of  plants  and  flowers; 
he  may  draw  into  his  description  all  the  beauties  of  spring 
and  autumn,  and  make  the  whole  year  contribute  something  to 
render  it  the  more  agreeable.  His  rose-trees,  woodbines,  and 
jessamines  may  flower  together,  and  his  beds  be  covered  at 
the  same  time  with  lilies,  violets,  and  amaranths.  His  soil  is 
not  restrained  to  any  particular  set  of  plants  ;  but  is  proper 
either  for  oaks  or  myrtles,  and  adapts  itself  to  the  products  of 
every  climate.  Oranges  may  grow  wild  in  it ;  myrrh  may  be 
met  with  in  every  hedge ;  and  if  he  thinks  it  proper  to  have 
a  grove  of  spices,  he  can  quickly  command  sun  enough  to  raise 
it.  Nay,  he  can  make  several  new  species  of  flowers  with 
richer  scents  and  higher  colors  than  any  that  grow  in  the  gar- 
dens of  nature.  His  concerts  of  birds  may  be  as  full  and 
harmonious,  and  his  woods  as  thick  and  gloomy,  as  he  pleases. 
He  is  at  no  more  expense  in  a  long  vista  than  in  a  short  one, 
and  can  as  easily  throw  his  cascades  from  a  precipice  of  half 
a  mile  high,  as  from  one  of  twenty  yards.  He  has  his  choice 
of  the  winds,  and  can  turn  the  course  of  his  rivers,  in  all  the 
variety  of  meanders  that  are  most  delightful  to  the  reader's 
imagination." 

Such  are  a  poet's  prerogatives,  and  would 

"  Classic  Hallam,  much  renown'd  for  Greek," 

snatch  these  from  Spenser, 

"  High  priest  of  all  the  Muses'  mysteries  ?  " 

In  the  same  spirit  he  presumes,  with  some  misgivings,  how- 
ever, to  object  to  the  celebrated  stanza  describing  the  varied 
concert  of  winds,  waves,  birds,  voices,  and  musical  instruments 
in  the  "  Bower  of  Bliss,"  and  compares  it  to  that  which  tor- 
mented Hogarth's  "  Enraged  Musician  ! "  And  this  is  a  critic 
on  poetry  ! — worse,  if  possible,  than  a  pre-Raphaelite  on  art. 

His  account  of  Shakspeare  begins  with  the  following  elegant 
sentence : — "  Of  William  Shakspeare,  whom,  through  the 
mouths  of  those  whom  he  has  inspired  to  body  forth  the  mod- 
ifications of  his  mighty  mind,  we  seem  to  know  better  than 
any  human  writer,  it  may  be  truly  said  that  we  scarcely  know 
anything."  Certainly,  in  another  sense,  he  knows  little  of 


HAZLITT    AND    HALL  AM.  185 


him !  In  the  account  that  follows  of  Shakspeare's  plays,  he 
actually  sets  "  Love's  Labor  Lost,"  that  dull  tissue  of  "  mere 
havers,"  as  they  say  in  Scotland,  and  which  many  have  doubt- 
ed to  be  Shakspeare's,  since  it  displays  not  a  spark  of  his  wit, 
genius,  or  even  sense,  above  the  "  Comedy  of  Errors,"  the 
most  laughable  farce  in  the  world,  above  the  romantic  "  Two 
Gentlemen  of  Verona,"  and  above  the  "  Taming  of  the 
Shrew,"  that  delightful  half-plagiarism  of  the  great  drama- 
tist's. He  accuses  "Romeo  and  Juliet"  of  a  "want  of 
thoughtful  philosophy."  It  is  true  that  it  does  not  abound  in 
set  didactic  soliloquies,  like  those  of  "  Hamlet"  or  "  Timon;" 
but  how  much  of  the  essence  of  profoundest  thought  has  gone 
to  the  production  of  Mercutio  and  of  the  Apothecary,  and 
that  wierd  shop  of  his.  "  Twelfth  Night "  he  underrates  when 
compared  to  "  Much  Ado  about  Nothing."  We  dare  to  dif- 
fer from  him  in  this,  and  to  prefer  the  humors  of  Sir  Toby 
and  Sir  Andrew — not  to  speak  of  Malvolio — to  the  immortal 
Dogberry  and  Verges  themselves.  How  feeble  what  he  says 
of  Lear,  having  in  madness  "  thoughts  more  profound  than  in 
his  prosperous  hour  he  could  have  conceived,"  when  compared 
to  Charles  Lamb's  remarks  on  the  same  subject,  although  sug- 
gested apparently  by  them  !  Of  "Timon"  he  coldly  predi- 
cates, "  It  abounds  with  signs  of  his  genius."  "  Timon!"  the 
grandest  burst  of  poetic  misanthropy  ever  written,  certain 
soliloquies,  nay,  sentences  in  which,  condense  all  the  satire  of 
Juvenal  and  the  invective  of  Byron  !  "  What,  wouldst  thou 
to  Athens?"  asks  Apemantus.  "Thee  thither  in  a  whirl- 
wind."— "  What  wouldst  thou  best  liken  to  thy  flatterers?" 
"  Women  nearest,  but  men — men  are  the  things  themselves!" 
Another  critic  speaks  of  the  excellent  scolding  of  Timon,  as 
if  it  were  the  Billingsgate  of  a  furious  fishwoman,  and  not. 
the  foul  spittle  of  an  angry  God.  Just  as  we  have  said  else- 
where that  De  Quincey's  third  "  Suspirium  de  Profundis  "  is 
a  sigh  that  can  only  be  answered  by  the  Second  Advent,  so 
Shakspeare's  protest  in  "Timon"  against  man  as  he  is  and 
things  as  they  are,  lies  yet,  and  shall  lie,  unlifted  and  unre- 
plied  to,  till  the  great  Day  of  Judgment.  That  Coriolanus 
has  the  "  grandeur  of  sculpture,"  is  a  criticism  suggested 
rather  by  Kemble's  personation  of  him  than  by  the  character 
himself.  He,  as  Shakspeare  describes  him,  is  no  more  like 


18G  MODERN    CRITICS. 


sculpture  than  Fergus  Maclvor,  or  any  other  fierce,  proud, 
restless  Highland  chieftain.  He  may  be,  as  a  marble  statue, 
colossal ;  but  surely  not,  as  a  marble  statue,  calm.  The  rest 
of  his  remarks  on  Shakspeare  are  just  the  thousand  times 
reiterated  truisms  about  his  creative  power,  knowledge  of  hu- 
man nature,  superiority  to  the  dramatists  of  his  age,  and  con- 
tain nothing  but  what  has  been  said  before,  and  said  far 
better,  by  Johnson  and  Hazlitt. 

His  observations  on  Beaumont,  Fletcher,  and  Massinger 
show  deep  acquaintance  with  those  writers,  deeper  than  most 
people  who  regard  their  own  moral  reputation  would  now  care 
to  be  known  to  possess.  We  may  once  for  all  tell  the  unin- 
itiated that  more  beastly,  elaborate,  and  incessant  filth  and 
obscenity  are  not  to  be  found  in  all  literature,  than  in  the 
plays  of  these  three  dramatists ;  and  that  we,  at  least,  could 
only  read  one  or  two  of  them  through.  They  repelled  us  by 
the  strong  shock  of  disgust,  and  we  have  never  since  been  able 
to  understand  of  what  materials  the  men  are  made  who  have 
read  and  re-read  them,  paused  and  lingered  over  them,  dwelt 
fondly  on  their  beauties,  and  even  ventured  to  compare  them 
to  the  plays  of  Shakspeare;  the  morality  of  which,  consider- 
ing his  age,  is  as  wonderful  as  the  genius.  If  our  readers 
think  this  criticism  extreme,  let  them  turn,  not  to  the  disgust- 
ing books  themselves,  but  to  Coleridge's  "  Table  Talk,"  and 
note  what  he  says  of  them.  Hallam,  while  admitting  that 
there  was  much  to  condemn  in  their  indecency  and  even  licen- 
tiousness of  principle,  says,  "  Never  were  dramatic  poets  more 
thoroughly  gentlemen,  according  to  the  standard  of  their 
times."  May  our  age  be  preserved  from  such  gentility! 

In  his  criticism  on  "  Lycidas  "  occurs  this  sentence,  which 
we  beg  our  readers  to  compare  with  what  he  had  said  previ* 
ously  of  the  forest  in  the  "  Fairy  Queen  :" — 

"  Such  poems  as  '  Lycidas  '  are  read  with  the  willing  aban- 
donment of  the  imagination  to  a  waking  dream,  and  require 
only  that  general  possibility,  that  combination  of  images, 
which  common  experience  does  not  reject  as  incompatible  !  " 

So  that  thus  common  experience  is  made  the  guage  of  the 
poet's  waking  dreams.  Alas !  poor  Shelley,  Keats,  and  Cole- 
ridge, what  is  to  become  of  your  revolts  of  Islam,  Hyperions, 
and  Rimes  of  the  Ancient  Marinere,  when  tried  by  "  common 


HAZLITT  AND  HALLAM.  187 


experience,"  assisted  in  her  assizes  by  the  author  of  the  "  Con- 
stitutional History !" 

In  the  next  paragraph  but  one  he  tells  us  that  the  "  Ode  on 
the  Nativity"  is  truly  "  Pindaric;"  one  of  the  most  unlucky 
epithets  ever  applied.  What  resemblance  there  is  between 
the  swift,  sharp-glancing,  and  fiery  odes  of  the  "  inspired 
Olympic  jockey,"  and  that  slow-moving,  solemn  strain  of  the 
English  poet,  we  cannot  even  divine.  In  his  account  of  "  Par- 
adise Lost,"  he  assures  us  that  the  "  subject  is  managed  with 
admirable  skill ! "  We  rather  like  this  Perge  Puer  style, 
this  clapping  on  the  back,  from  such  a  man  as  Henry  Hallam 
to  such  a  man  as  John  Milton.  It  requires,  too,  a  certain 
power  and  courage  in  a  man  to  be  able  so  gravely  to  enunci- 
ate such  truisms  as  the  above,  and  as  the  following : — "  The 
Fall  of  Man  has  a  more  general  interest  than  the  Crusade." 
A  little  farther  on,  however,  we  are  startled  with  what  is  nei- 
ther a  truism,  nor  even  true.  "  The  first  two  books  confirm 
the  sneer  of  Dryden,  that  Satan  is  Milton's  hero,  since  they 
develop  a  plan  of  action  in  that  potentate  which  is  ultimately 
successful ;  the  triumph  which  he  and  his  host  must  experi- 
ence in  the  fall  of  man  being  hardly  compensated  by  their 
temporary  conversion  into  serpents."  As  if  that  were  the 
only  compensation ;  as  if  the  tenor  of  the  whole  argument 
were  not  to  show  that  the  second  Adam  was  to  bruise  the 
Serpent's  head  by  recovering  the  majority  of  the  race  from 
Satan's  grasp,  and  by,  at  last,  "  consuming  Satan  and  his  per- 
verted world."  The  object  of  Satan  was  not  only  to  ruin 
man,  but  to  rob  God  of  glory;  and  the  purpose  of  the  poet  is 
to  show  how  neither  part  of  the  plan  was  successful,  but  that 
it  all  redounded  to  the  devil's  misery  and  disgrace,  and  to  the 
triumph  of  God  and  of  the  Messiah.  So  that,  if  it  be  essen- 
tial to  the  hero  of  an  epic  that  he  be  victorious,  Satan  is  not 
the  hero  of  the  "  Paradise  Lost,"  any  more  than  of  the  "Par- 
adise Regained,"  although  he  is  undoubtedly  the  most  inter- 
esting and  powerfully-drawn  character  in  the  former, 

Or  what  do  our  readers  think  of  this  ? — "  Except  one  cir- 
cumstance, which  seems  rather  physical  intoxication  than  any- 
thing else,  we  do  not  find  any  sign  of  depravity  superinduced 
upon  the  transgression  of  our  first  parents,"  Has  Mr.  Hal- 
lam  forgotten  that  magnificent  scene  of  their  mutual  recrimi- 


188  MODERN    CRITICS. 


nation,  and  of  the  gross  injustice  Adam  does  to  Eve,  by  call- 
ing her  "  that  bad  woman,"  "  that  serpent,"  &c.  ?  Was  there 
no  sign  of  begun  depravity  there  ?  And  was  even  "  physical 
intoxication"  possible  to  undepraved  beings  ? 

In  the  next  paragraph  he  speaks  of  Homer's  "  diffuseness;" 
rather  a  novel  charge,  we  ween.  Of  repetition  he  has  often 
been  accused,  but  never  before  of  diffuseness.  His  lines  are 
lances,  as  compressed  as  they  are  keen. 

A  few  pages  afterwards  Hallam  says : — "  I  scarcely  think 
that  he  had  begun  his  poem  before  the  anxiety  and  trouble 
into  which  the  public  strife  of  the  Commonwealth  and  the 
Restoration  had  thrown  him,  gave  leisure  for  immortal  occu- 
pations." Aubrey,  on  the  contrary,  expressly  asserts  that 
Milton  began  his  great  work  two  years  before  the  Restoration. 
A  fine  sentence  follows,  in  which  the  bust  really  seems  nearly 
alive,  and  you  cry,  O  si  sic  omnia,  or  even  multa! — "  Then 
the  remembrance  of  early  reading  came  over  his  dark  and 
lonely  path,  like  the  moon  emerging  from  the  clouds."  Then 
follows  an  attempt  at  antithesis,  which  seems  to  us  extremely 
unsuccessful : — "  Milton  is  more  a  musical  than  a  picturesque 
poet.  He  describes  visible  things,  but  he  feels  music." 
What  does  this  mean  ?  or,  at  least,  where  is  its  force  ?  Had 
he  said,  "  He  is,"  or  "  becomes  music,"  it  had  been  a  novel 
and  a  beautiful  thought.  He  then  brings  forward  the  old 
exploded  objection  to  Milton's  lists  of  sonorous  names.  Many 
have  stated,  but  few,  we  hope,  have  ever  felt  this  objection. 
To  those  possessed  of  historical  lore,  these  names,  as  Macau- 
lay  remarks,  are  charmed  names ;  to  others  they  are  like  a 
foreign  language  spoken  by  a  Gavazzi,  or  sung  by  a  Jenny 
Lind — their  music  affects  them  almost  as  deeply  as  their 
meaning  could.  If  jargon,  they  are  at  least  the  mighty  jar- 
gon of  a  magician  opening  doors  in  rocks,  rooting  up  pines, 
and  making  palaces  and  mountains  come  and  go  at  his  plea- 
sure. 

After  somewhat  underrating  "  Paradise  Regained,"  he  closes 
his  estimate  of  Milton  with  a  good  account  of  "  Samson  Ago- 
nistes" — a  poem,  the  "  sculptural  simplicity"  of  which  seems 
to  suit  his  taste  better  than  the  grandeurs  of  the  "  Paradise 
Lost,"  or  the  graces  of  the  "  Paradise  Regained." 

We  could  have  gone  on  much  longer,  proving  Hallam's 


JEFFREY    AND    COLERIDGE.  189 


incapacity  as  a  critic  of  poets,  but  must  at  present  stop.  We 
have  ventured  on  these  remarks  from  no  personal  feeling  to 
the  author ;  in  fact,  although  we  have  spoken  of  him  as  living, 
we  are  not  sure  but  he  is  dead.  To  detract  from  his  fame  as 
a  scholar  and  a  historian,  or  rather  critic  on  history,  were  a 
hopeless  and  an  unjust  attempt.  But  we  are  sorry  to  see 
powers  so  efficient  in  other  fields  worse  than  wasted  upon  the 
sides  of  Parnassus.  To  warn  him  and  such  as  he  off  that 
sacred  and  secluded  territory,  we  shall  ever  regard  as  our 
bounden  duty. 


NO.  II.-JEFFREY  AND  COLERIDGE. 

OUR  foregoing  paper  is  on  Hallam  and  Hazlitt.  Our  next  is 
on  two  men  who  also  constitute  types  of  our  two  main  modern 
schools  of  criticism — namely,  the  Mechanical  and  the  Impul- 
sive— although  in  both  of  them  there  are  other  elements 
blended  :  Jeffrey,  much  more  than  Hallam,  having  the  genial 
playing  above  the  hard  surface  of  his  mechanical  judgment ; 
and  Coleridge,  much  more  than  Hazlitt,  having  a  philosophi- 
cal basis  established  below  his  impulsive  eloquence  of  thought. 
We  first  saw  Lord  Jeffrey  at  a  meeting  held  in  Edinburgh, 
to  erect  a  monument  to  the  memory  of  Sir  Walter  Scott,  then, 
recently  deceased.  After  the  poor  Duke  of  Buccleuch,  who 
acted  as  chairman,  had  delivered  a  silly  speech  in  a  hammer- 
ing-stammering style  (one  of  his  best  sentences  was,  "  As  to 
Scott's  poetry,  where  was  there  ever  anything  like  that  ?"), 
up  rose  our  elegant,  refined,  little  Law-Lord,  and  began  in  a 
shrill,  sharp,  yet  tremulous  tone,  to  panegyrise  the  memory 
of  his  most  formidable  Scottish  rival.  His  remarks  were 
brief  and  in  beautiful  taste,  especially  when  he  spoke  of  men 
of  all  politics  and  classes  having  entered  that  hall,  u  as  if  into 
the  Temple  of  the  Deity,"  to  perform  an  act  of  common  and 
catholic  homage  to  the  virtues  and  genius  of  Sir  Walter  Scott. 
We  were  too  distant  to  see  his  features  distinctly,  but  shall 
never  forget  the  impression  made  on  us  by  his  piercing  rapid 


190  MODERN    CRITICS. 


tones,  and  by  the  mingled  dexterity  and  dignity  of  the  style 
of  his  address. 

This  was  the  first  and  last  time  of  our  hearing  or  seeing 
Jeffrey.  But  for  years  before  we  had  been  familiar  with  his 
fascinating  articles  in  the  "  Edinburgh  Review  " — articles 
which  now  exert  on  us  only  the  shadow  of  their  original  spell. 
Certainly  more  graceful  and  lively  productions  are  not  to  be 
found  in  the  compass  of  criticism  ;  but  in  depth,  power,  width, 
and,  above  all,  truth,  they  must  take,  on  the  whole,  a  second- 
ary rank. 

Lord  Jeffrey  had,  unquestionably,  many  of  the  elements 
which  unite  to  form  a  genuine  critic.  He  had  a  subtle  per- 
ception of  a  certain  class  of  intellectual  and  literary  beauties. 
He  had  a  generous  sympathy  with  many  forms  of  genius.  He 
had  a  keen  logic  with  which  to  defend  his  views — a  lively  wit, 
a  fine  fancy,  and  a  rapid,  varied  eloquence  with  which  to  ex- 
pound and  illustrate  them.  There  was  about  his  writing,  too, 
a  certain  inimitable  ease,  which  looked  at  first  like  careless- 
ness, but  which  on  closer  inspection  turned  out  to  be  the  com- 
pounded result  of  high  culture,  much  intercourse  with  the  best 
society,  and  much  practice  in  public  speaking.  His  knowledge 
of  law,  too,  had  whetted  his  natural  acuteuess  to  a  razor-like 
sharpness.  His  learning  was  not,  perhaps,  massive  or  pro- 
found ;  but  his  reading  had  been  very  extensive,  and,  retained 
in  its  entireness,  became  exceedingly  serviceable  to  him  in  all 
his  mental  efforts.  His  genius  possessed  great  versatility, 
and  had  been  fed  with  very  various  provision,  so  that  he  was 
equally  fitted  to  grapple  with  certain  kinds  of  philosophy,  and 
to  discourse  on  certain  schools  of  poetry,  and  was  familiar 
alike  with  law,  literature,  metaphysics,  and  history.  The 
moral  spirit  of  his  writings  was  that  of  a  gentleman  and  man 
of  the  world,  who  was  at  all  times  ready  to  trample  on  mean- 
ness, and  to  resent  every  injury  done  to  the  common  codes  of 
honor,  decency,  generosity,  and  external  morality. 

Such  is,  we  think,  a  somewhat  comprehensive  list  of  the 
good  properties  of  Jeffrey  as  a  critic.  But  he  labored  not 
less  certainly  under  various  important  defects,  which  we  pro- 
ceed now  with  all  candor  to  notice.  He  was  not,  in  the  first 
place,  although  a  subtle  and  acute,  a  profound  or  comprehen- 
sive thinker.  He  saw  the  edges  of  a  thought,  but  not  a 


JEFFREY    AND    COLERIDGE.  191 


thought  in  its  length,  depth,  breadth,  and  in  its  relation  to 
any  great  scheme  of  principles.  Hence,  with  all  his  logical 
fence,,  and  clear,  rapid  induction  of  particulars,  he  is  often  a 
shallow,  and  seldom  a  satisfactory  thinker.  He  seems  con- 
stantly, by  a  tentative  process,  seeking  for  his  theories,  seldom 
coining  down  upon  them  from  the  high  summit  of  philosophi- 
cal views.  He  has  very  few  deep  glimpses  of  truth,  and 
scarcely  any  aphoristic  sentences.  His  language,  rhetoric, 
and  fancy  are  often  felt  to  be  rich ;  his  vein  of  thought  sel- 
dom if  ever — it  is  diffused  in  long  strata,  not  concentrated 
into  solid  masses.  He  had  no  nuggets  in  his  mines  !  Hence 
he  is  far  from  being  a  suggestive  writer.  Compare  him  in 
this  respect  with  Burke,  with  Coleridge,  with  Foster  !  We 
are  not  blaming  him  for  not  having  been  one  of  these  men ;  we 
are  merely  thus  severely  defining  what  we  think  the  exact 
limits,  and  measuring  the  proper  proportions,  of  his  mind. 

Although  possessed  of  much  and  brilliant  fancy,  he  had  no 
high  imagination,  and  therefore  little  true  sympathy  with  it. 
The  critic  of  the  first  poets  must  be  himself  potentially  a  poet. 
To  sec  the  sun,  implies  only  eyes ;  but  to  sing  the  sun  aright, 
implies  a  spark  of  his.  fire  in  the  singer's  soul.  Jeffrey  saw 
Milton,  Homer,  Dante,  Shakspeare,  and  the  writers  of  the  Bi- 
ble, but  he  could  not  sing  their  glories.  Indeed,  in  reference 
to  the  first  three  and  the  last  of  these  mighty  poets,  he  has 
never,  so  far  as  we  remember,  uttered  one  word,  or  at  least 
shown  any  thorough  or  profound  appreciation  of  their  power. 
Who  quotes  his  panegyrics  on  Milton  and  Dante,  if  such  things 
there  be  ?  Where  has  he  spoken  of  Isaiah,  David,  or  Job  ? 
Shakspeare,  indeed,  he  has  often  and  gracefully  praised ;  but 
it  is  the  myriad-minded  in  undress  that  he  loves,  and  not  as  he 
is  bound  up  to  the  full  pitch  of  his  transcendent  genius — he 
likes  him  better  as  the  Shakspeare  of  "  Romeo,"  and  the  "  Mid- 
summer Night's  Dream,"  than  as  the  Shakspeare  of  "  Mac- 
beth," "Lear,"  and  "Hamlet;"  and  his  remarks,  eloquent 
though  they  are,  show  no  such  knowledge  of  him  as  is  mani- 
fested by  Hazlitt,  Coleridge,  and  Lamb.  Almost  all  the  great 
original  poets  of  his  own  time  he  has  either  underrated,  or  at- 
tacked, or  passed  over  in  silence.  Think  of  Wordsworth, 
Southey,  Coleridge,  Shelley  !  Many  of  the  best  English  wri- 
ters of  the  past  are  treated  with  indifference  or  neglect.  Burke 


192  MODERN    CRITICS, 


he  only  mentions  once  or  twice.  Johnson  he  sometimes  sneers  / 
at,  and  sometimes  patronises.  To  swift  as  a  writer  he  has  done 
gross  injustice.  Sir  Thomas  Browne  seems  unknown  to  him. 
Young  of  the  "  Night  Thoughts,"  Thomson,  and  Cowper,  are 
all  underrated.  To  Jeremy  Taylor,  indeed,  he  has  given  his 
due  meed  of  praise,  and  to  the  early  English  dramatists  much 
more  than  their  due.  And  who,  on  the  other  hand,  are  his 
special  favorites  ?  Pope  he  admired  for  his  brilliant  wit  and 
polish ;  Crabbe  for  his  terseness  and  truth ;  Moore  for  his 
light  and  airy  fancy ;  Campbell  for  his  classic  energy  and  na- 
tional spirit ;  and  Byron,  not  for  the  awful  horn  of  blasphemy 
and  creative  power  which  rose  late  on  his  forehead  in  "  Cain," 
"  Heaven  and  Earth,"  and  the  "  Vision  of  Judgment,"  but  for 
his  "  Giaours"  and  "  Corsairs,"  and  the  other  clever  centos  of 
that  imitative  period  of  his  poetical  life.  In  praising  these 
writers  he  was  so  far  right,  but  he  was  not  right  in  exalting 
them  above  their  greater  contemporaries  ;  and  the  fact  that  he 
did  so,  simply  shows  that  there  was  in  his  own  mind  a  certain 
vital  imaginative  deficiency,  disqualifying  him  from  criticising 
the  highest  specimens  of  the  art  of  poetry.  What  would  we 
think  of  a  critic  on  the  fine  arts,  who  should  prefer  Flaxmau 
to  Angelo,  or  Reynolds  to  Raphael,  or  Danby  to  Leonardo  da 
Vinci  ? 

In  connection  with  this  want  of  high  imagination,  there  was 
in  Jeffrey  a  want  of  abandonment  and  enthusiasm :  of  false 
enthusiasm  he  was  incapable,  although  he  was  sometimes  de- 
ceived by  it  in  others.  But  the  genuine  child-like  ardor  which 
leads  a  man  to  clap  his  hands  or  to  weep  aloud  as  he  sees  some 
beautiful  landscape,  or  reads  some  noble  passage  of  poetry  or 
prose,  if  it  ever  was  in  him,  was  early  frozen  up  by  the  influ- 
ences of  the  society  with  which  he  mingled  in  his  early  days. 
We  disagree  with  Thomas  Carlyle  in  many,  and  these  very 
momentous,  things — but  we  thoroughly  agree  with  him  in  his 
judgment  of  the  mischief  which  logic  and  speculation  wrought 
upon  the  brains  and  hearts  of  the  Scottish  lawyers  and  literati 
about  the  end  of  last  century  and  the  beginning  of  this.  We 
have  heard  of  him  saying,  "  that  when  in  Edinburgh,  if  he  had 
not  thought  there  were  some  better  people  somewhere  in  the 
world  than  those  he  met  with  there,  he  would  have  gone  away 
and  hanged  himself.  The  best  he  met  were  Whig  lawyers,  and 


JEFFREY    AND    COLERIDGE.  193 


they  believed  in  nothing  except  what  they  saw !'  Among  this 
class  Jeffrey  was  reared,  and  it  was  no  wonder  tnat  the  wings 
of  his  enthusiasm,  which  were  never  of  eagle  breadth,  were 
sadly  curtailed.  Indeed  the  marvel  is,  that  they  were  not  torn 
away  by  the  roots,  and  that  he  has  indited  certain  panegyrics 
on  certain  favorite  authors,  which,  if  cold,  resemble  at  least 
cold  cast,  as  we  see  sometimes  in  frost-work,  into  the  form  of 
fire. 

"What  a  propensity  to  sneer  there  was,  especially  in  his  ear- 
lier writings  !  Stab  he  could  not — at  least,  in  the  dark.  He 
left  that  Italian  task  to  another  and  more  malignant  spirit,  of 
whom  THIS  "  world  is  not  worthy,"  and  who,  maugre  Jeffrey's 
kind  interference  to  prevent  him,  often  dipped  his  stiletto  in 
poison — the  poison  of  his  own  fierce  passions.  But  Jeffrey's 
sneers  were  nearly  as  formidable  as  his  coaajutor's  stabs. 
They  were  so  light,  and  apparently  gentle  !  The  sneer  at  a 
distance  might  almost  have  been  mistaken  for  an  infant  smile; 
and  yet  how  thoroughly  it  did  its  work !  It  was  as  though 
the  shadow  of  poison  could  kill.  It  was  fortunate  that  alike 
good  sense  and  generosity  taught  him  in  general  to  reserve  his 
power  of  .sarcasm  for  those  whom  it  might  annoy  and  even 
check  in  popularity,  but  could  not  harm  in  person  or  in  purse. 
Jeffrey  flew  at  noble  game — at  Scott,  and  Southey,  and  Words- 
worth. This  doubtless  was  done  in  part  from  the  levity  and 
persiflage  characteristic  of  an  aspiring  Edinburgh  youth. — 
Truly  does  the  writer  quoted  in  the  last  paragraph  say,  that 
there  is  "  a  certain  age  when  all  young  men  should  be  clapped 
into  barrels,  and  so  kept  till  they  come  to  years  of  discretion' 
— so  intolerable  is  their  conceit,  and  so  absurd  their  projects 
and  hopes-— especially  when  to  a  large  quantum  of  impudence 
and  a  minimum  of  true  enthusiasm  they  add  only  that  "  little 
learning"  which  is  so  common  and  so  dangerous  a  thing  in 
this  our  day.  Jeffrey,  although  rising  ineffably  above  the 
wretched  young  prigs  and  pretenders  of  his  own  or  the  present 
time,  was  seldom  entirely  free  from  the  spirit  of  intellectual 
puppyism.  There  was  a  pertness  about  his  general  manner 
of  writing.  Amazingly  clever,  adroit,  subtle — he  always  gave 
you  the  impression  of  smallness ;  and  you  fancied  that  you 
saw  Wordsworth,  while  still  smarting  under  his  arrows,  lifting 
him  up  in  his  hand,  as  did  Gulliver  a  Lilliputian,  and  admir- 


194  MODERN    C1UTICS. 


ing  the  finished  proportions  of  his  tiny  antagonist.  And  yet 
how,  with  his  needle-like  missiles,  did  he  shed  round  pain  and 
consternation  upon  the  mightiest  of  the  land  !  How  did 
James  Montgomery,  and  William  Godwin,  and  Coleridge,  and 
Lamb,  and  Southey,  and  a  hundred  more  of  mark  and  likeli- 
hood, groan  like  the  wounded  Cyclops — and  how  they  reeled 
and  staggered  when  they  felt  themselves  blinded  by  weapons 
which  they  despised,  and  victimised  by  an  enemy  they  pre- 
viously could  hardly  see  ! 

Latterly,  indeed,  we  notice  in  Jeffrey's  style  less  of  the 
mannikin,  and  more  of  the  man— less  of  the  captious  criti- 
caster, and  more  of  the  large-minded  judge.  His  paper  on 
Byron's  Tragedies  is  a  specimen  of  his  better  manner,  being 
bold  and  masculine ;  and  it  does  not  seem,  like  many  of  hia 
articles,  as  if  it  should  have  been  written  on  a  watch-paper. 
In  treating  Warburton,  too,  he  gets  up  on  tiptoe,  in  sympathy 
with  the  bulky  bishop ;  nor  does  he  lose  either  his  dignity  or 
balance  in  the  effort.  But  his  attack  on  Swift  is  by  far  his 
most  powerful  review.  We  demur  to  his  estimate  of  his 
talents  as  a  writer.  Swift  could  have  swallowed  a  hundred 
Jeffreys.  His  power  was  simple  and  strong,  as  one  of  the 
energies  of  Nature.  He  did  by  the  moving  of  his  finger  what 
others  could  not  by  the  straining  and  agitation  of  their  whole 
frame.  It  was  a  stripped,  concentred,  irresistible  force  which 
dwelt  in  him — fed,  too,  by  unutterable  misery ;  and  hence 
his  power,  and  hence  his  pollution.  He  was  strong,  naked, 
coarse,  savage,  and  mud-loving,  as  one  of  the  huge  primeval 
creatures  of  chaos.  Jeffrey's  sense  of  polish,  feeling  of  ele- 
gance and  propriety,  consciousness  of  inferiority  in  most  things, 
and  consciousness  of  superiority  in  some,  all  contributed  to 
rouse  his  ire  at  Swift ;  and,  unequal  as  on  the  whole  the 
match  was,  the  clever  Scotchman  beat  the  monster  Paddy. 
One  is  reminded  of  Gulliver's  contest  with  some  of  the  gigan- 
tic reptiles  and  wasps  of  Brobdignag.  Armed  with  his  hanger, 
that  redoubtable  traveler  made  them  resile,  or  sent  them 
wounded  away.  And  thus  the  memory  of  Swift  bears  Jeffrey's 
steel-mark  on  it,  and  shall  bear  it  for  ever. 

And  yet,  although  Jeffrey  was  capable  of  high  moral  indig- 
nation, he  appears  to  have  had  very  little  religious  suscepti- 
bility. He  was  one  of  those  who  seem  never  either  to  have 


JEFFREY    AND    COLERIDGE.  195 


heartily  hated  or  heartily  loved  religion.  He  had  thought  on 
the  subject ;  but  only  as  he  had  thought  on  the  guilt  of  Mary 
Queen  of  Scots — as  an  interesting  historical  puzzle,  and  not 
as  a  question  deeply  affecting  his  own  heart  and  personal  in- 
terests. We  find  in  his  writings  no  sympathy  with  the  high 
heroic  faith,  the  dauntless  resistance,  and  the  long-continued 
sufferings  of  the  religious  confessors  and  Covenanters  of  his 
own  country.  He  could  lay  indeed  a  withering  touch  on  their 
enemies ;  but  them  he  passed  by  in  silence,  or  acknowledged 
only  by  sneers.  In  this  respect,  however,  as  well  as  in  his 
literary  tone  and  temper,  we  notice  a  decided  improvement  in 
his  latter  days.  He  who,  in  an  early  number  of  the  "  Edin- 
burgh Review,"  applied  a  dancing-master  standard  to  brawny 
Burns,  and  would  have  shorn  and  scented  him  down  to  the 
standard  of  Edinburgh  modish  life,  in  a  diary  written  a  little 
before  his  death,  calls  him  a  "  glorious  being,"  and  wishes  he 
had  been  contemporary  with  him,  that  he  might  have  called  at 
his  Dumfries  hovel,  and  comforted  his  unhappy  spirit.  And 
he  who  had  sneered,  times  and  ways  without  number,  at  Scot- 
tish Presbyterian  religion,  actually  shed  tears  when  he  saw 
the  Free  Church  party  leaving  the  General  Assembly  to  cast 
themselves  on  the  Voluntary  Principle;  and  said  that  no 
country  but  Scotland  could  have  exhibited  a  spectacle  so 
morally  sublime.  In  both  these  respects,  indeed,  latterly,  the 
re-action  becomes  so  complete  as  to  be  rather  ludicrous  than 
edifying.  Think  of  how,  in  his  letters,  he  deals  with  Dickens  ; 
how  he  kisses  and  fondles  him  as  a  lady  does  her  lap-dog ; 
how  he  weeps  instead  of  laughing  over  those  miserable  Christ- 
mas tales  of  his ;  how  he  seems  to  believe  a  pug  of  genius  to 
be  a  very  lion  !  How  different  had  Dickens's  worse  produc- 
tions appeared  in  the  earlier  part  of  Jeffrey's  critical  career  ! 
As  to  religion,  his  tone  becomes  that  of  childish  sentimental- 
ism  ;  and,  unable  to  the  last  to  give  either  to  the  Bible  or  to 
the  existence  of  Grod  the  homage  of  a  manly  belief,  he  can  yet 
shed  over  them  floods  of  silly  and  senile  tears. 

Yet  let  him  have  his  praise,  as  one  of  the  acutest,  most 
fluent,  lively,  and  on  the  whole  amiable,  of  our  modern  Scot- 
tish celebrities  ;  although  not,  as  Cockburn  calls  him  in  that 
lamentable  life  of  his,  at  which  the  public  have  scarcely  yet 
ceased  to  laugh,  "  the  first  of  British  critics  ! ! !  "  His  fame, 


19G  MODERN    CRITICS. 


except  in  Edinburgh,  is  fast  dwindling  away ;  and  although 
some  passages  in  his  writings  may  long  be  quoted,  his  memory 
is  sure  of  preservation,  chiefly  from  the  connection  of  his 
name  with  that  of  the  "  Edinburgh  Review,"  and  with  those 
powerful  but  uncertain  influences  in  literature,  politics,  philo- 
sophy, and  religion,  which  that  review  once  wielded. 

Coleridge  was  a  man  of  another  order.  Indeed,  we  are  half 
tempted  to  unite  with  De  Quincey  in  calling  him  the  "  largest 
and  most  spacious  intellect  that  has  hitherto  existed  among 
men."  All  men,  of  course,  compared  with  God,  are  fragments. 
Shakspeare  himself  was,  and  so  was  Coleridge.  But,  of  all 
men  of  his  time  (Goethe  not  excepted),  Coleridge  approached 
nearest  to  our  conception  of  a  whole ;  and  it  was  his  own  fault 
principally  that  he  did  not  approach  to  this  as  nearly  as  Shak- 
speare. He  had,  as  he  boasted  of  himself,  "  energic  reason 
and  a  shaping  mind."  He  had  imagination,  intellect,  reason, 
logic,  fancy,  and  a  hundred  other  faculties,  all  developed  in 
nearly  equal  proportions,  and  all  cultivated  to  nearly  the  same 
degree.  He  had,  besides,  a  high  and  solemn  sense  of  God, 
and  a  firm  belief  in  his  personality.  Such  powers  were  united 
with  all  the  mechanical  gifts  of  language  and  musical  utter- 
ance, which  tend  to  make  them  influential  on  the  general  pub- 
lic, and  with  a  fine  bodily  constitution.  What  then  was  want- 
ing to  this  new  Adam,  thus  endowed  in  the  prodigality  of 
heaven  ?  Only  two  things — a  will  and  a  wife — or,  more  pro- 
perly speaking,  one — a  wife  who  could  have  become  a  will  to 
him,  and  who  could  have  led  him  to  labor,  regularity,  and  vir- 
tue. No  such  blessing  was  conferred  on  poor  Coleridge.  His 
"  pensive  Sara"  failed,  without  any  positive  fault  on  her  side, 
but  from  mere  non-adaptation,  in  managing  her  gifted  lord. 
And  thus,  left  to  his  own  rudderless  impulses,  he  drifted  on  in 
a  half-drunken  dream,  till  he  neared  the  rocks  of  ruin;  and 
only  at  the  call  of  Cottle  and  Southey  turned  round,  in  time 
to  save  a  fraction  of  his  intellect,  of  his  character,  and  of  his 
peace.  Infinite  and  eternal  regrets  must  hover  above  the  re- 
cord which  tells  of  the  history  of  Coleridge  ;  the  more  as  he 
neither  fully  went  down,  nor  fully  escaped  the  Maelstrom ;  in 
either  of  which  cases,  his  fate  had  been  more  instructive  and 
even  less  mysterious  than  it  now  is. 

Yet  we  must  here  emphatically  protest  against  Carlyle's  re- 


JEFFREY    AND    COLERIDGE.  197 


cent  attempt  to  depreciate  Coleridge.  It  is  altogether  un- 
worthy of  the  author  of  the  "  Life  of  Schiller,"  although  infi- 
nitely worthy  of  the  author  of  the  "  Model  Prisons1* — that 
wretched  inhumanity,  which  seemed  like  Swift's  last  ghastly 
grin  gone  astray,  and  re-appearing  on  the  lips  of  Sartor. — 
Coleridge,  it  seems,  had  nothing  but  "  beautiful  philosophic 
moonshine."  Better  surely  philosophic  moonshine  than  "  phi- 
losophic reek."  Better  try  by  moonshine  to  calm  or  brighten 
the  jarring  waves  of  this  troubled  age,  than  to  darken  them 
by  a  mist  of  jargon,  or  churn  them  into  wilder  fury  by  exple- 
tives of  blasphemy.  Coleridge,  we  admit,  did  not  fully  ac- 
complish the  task  he  undertook ;  but  it  was  a  task,  and  a  task 
of  heroic  daring — better  and  nobler  certainly  than  the  act  of 
lying  down  in  the  path  of  the  world,  and  uttering  howls  of  des- 
pair and  furious  invectives — invectives  and  exclamations  which 
were  endured  for  awhile,  for  the  sake  of  their  music  and 
poetry;  but  which,  having  outlived  that  poetry  and  that 
music,  are  now  very  generally  and  justly  regarded  as  the  out- 
cries of  one  who,  naturally  a  noble  being,  has  been  partly  sour- 
ed and  partly  spoiled  into  something  we  can  hardly  venture  to 
describe,  except  that  it  is  rabidly  hopeless,  and  hopelessly 
rabid.  Alas  !  alas  !  for  the  Carlyle  of  1829,  when  the  article 
on  Burns  appeared — 

"  If  them  bcest  ho  ;  but  oh !  how  fallen,  how  changed !" 

It  is  not  our  purpose  to  enter  on  the  mare  magnum  of  tlie 
Coleridgean  question  as  a  whole ;  but  to  speak  simply  and 
shortly  of  him  in  his  critical  function  and  faculty.  That  par- 
took of  the  vast  enlargement  and  varied  culture  of  his  mind. 
He  arose  at  a  time  when  criticism  had  fallen  as  low  as  poetry. 
Haylcy  was  then  the  leading  poet,  and  Blair  the  ruling  critic  ! 
The  "  Edinburgh  Review"  had  not  risen,  when  a  dark-haired 
man,  "  more  fat  than  bard  beseems,"  with  ivory  forehead, 
misty  eye,  boundless  appetite  for  Welsh  mutton,  turnips,  and 
flip,  "  talking  like  an  angel,  and  doing  nothing  at  all,"  com- 
menced to  talk  and  lecture  on  poetry  all  along  the  Bristol 
Channel — in  Shropshire  and  in  Shrewsbury,  in  Manchester  and 
in  Birmingham ;  and  so  new  and  striking  were  his  views,  and 
so  eloquent  his  language,  and  so  native  his  enthusiasm,  that 


198  MODERN    CRITICS. 


ill  men'shearts  burned  within  them  as  he  spoke.  He  "threw," 
says  Hazlitt,  "  a  great  stone  into  the  torpid  and  stagnant  wa- 
ters of  criticism."  He  set  up  Shakspeare  above  Pope;  he 
praised  Thomson  and  Cowper,  as  vastly  superior  to  even  Ad- 
dison  and  Goldsmith  ;  he  magnified  Collins  over  Gray ;  he  as- 
serted the  immeasurable  superiority  of  Burke  to  all  his  con- 
temporaries ;  he  turned  attention  to  the  ancient  ballad  poetry 
of  Britain  ;  and  he  pointed  his  finger  toward  the  great  orb  of 
German  genius  which  was  then  rising  slowly,  and  amid  heavy 
clouds,  over  the  horizon  of  the  British  mind.  He  did  more 
than  this  :  he  made  his  audiences  for  the  first  time  hear  poetry 
read,  not  with  the  disgusting  tricks  of  such  elocution  as  was 
then,  and  is  still  taught,  but  as  poets  should  read  it,  and  as 
lovers  of  poetry  should  desire  it  to  be  read.  And  the  poetry 
he  did  read  was  sometimes  his  own — the  fine  fresh  incense  of 
his  young  enthusiasm  and  insight,  colored  by  the  hues  of  hea- 
ven as  it  ascended  up  on  high. 

The  effect  he  produced  was  greatly  increased  afterwards,  by 
the  influences  of  a  visit  to  Germany  upon  his  mind  and  his 
eloquence.  This,  instead  of  deadening,  simply  directed  the 
current  of  his  enthusiasm.  It  made  him  a  wise  enthusiast. — 
He  could  now  substantiate  his  statements,  made  at  first  from 
intuitons,  by  critical  principles,  which  were,  indeed,  just  in- 
tuitions grown  old  and  established.  He  had  greatly  profited 
by  reading  Lessing,  Goethe,  and  Schiller,  and  he  set  himself 
to  translate  them,  in  various  ways,  to  his  countrymen.  It 
mattered  i  ot  though  his  works  did  not  circulate ;  he  circulat- 
ed, and  wherever  he  went  intellectual  virtue  went  out  of  him 
He  scattered  critical  dust — and  it  was  fire-dust — along  his 
path ;  and  such  men  as  Lamb,  and  Hazlitt,  and  Southey,  and 
De  Quincey,  and  Lloyd,  were  ever  ready  to  collect  it,  and  to 
make  it,  and  perhaps  sometimes  to  call  it,  thpir  own.  For 
several  years,  in  fact,  the  controversy  of  criticism  amounted  to 
a  brisk  fire  between  the  "  Edinburgh  Review,"  stationary  in 
the  metropolis  of  Scotland,  and  S.  T.  Coleridge,  wandering  at 
his  own  will  through  merry  England,  from  London  to  the 
Lakes,  and  from  the  Lakes  to  Bristol,  or  to  London  back 
again.  At  the  outset,  the  "  Review"  had  the  advantage ;  but 
ultimately  Coleridge,  "Wordsworth,  and  their  party  talked  and 
wrote  its  criticism  down — nay,  best  of  all,  converted  the  '•  Re- 
view" to  their  side,  though  never  fully  to  themselves. 


JEFFREY    AND    COLERIDGE.  199 


It  is  unfortunate  that  Coleridge  has  not  condensed  his  criti- 
cism into  any  distinct  system,  or  wrought  it  out  into  any  series 
of  critical  papers.  Hence  we  have  only  fragments,  such  as  are 
scattered  through  his  "  Friend"  and  "  Biographia  Literaria," 
or  found  in  his  "  Table  Talk/'  From  these,  however,  it  is 
very  easy  to  see  the  leading  principles  on  which  all  his  criti- 
cism proceeds.  His  two  great  principles  were,  first,  the  differ- 
ence between  the  Imagination  and  the  Fancy;  and,  secondly, 
the  necessity  of  an  organic  unity  to  all  the  higher  works  of 
art.  The  first  of  these,  although  not,  we  think,  just,  led  him 
to  the  strong  distinction  he  perpetually  draws  between  the 
soi-disant  poetry  of  Pope,  Addison,  and  Darwin;  and  that  of 
Shakspeare,  Milton,  and  the  rest  of  our  great  poets.  His 
inculcation  of  organic  unity  in  works  of  genius  is  unquestion- 
ably pushed  too  far — so  far,  indeed,  that  on  his  principles 
thore  are  only  one  or  two  poems,  however  many  poets  there 
znay  be,  in  the  world.  But  it  has  done  good,  notwithstand- 
ing, in  curbing  that  tendency  to  fragmentary  and  fugitive 
effort  which  has  beset  so  many  poets ;  and  in  opening  their 
eyes  to  what  is  certainly  the  most  difficult  peak  in  the  poetic 
art.  Coleridge,  too,  has  strongly  insisted  upon  poets  study- 
ing philosophy  as  the  basis  of  their  song — seeking  to  construct 
their  verse  and  language  upon  scientific  principles,  and  con- 
secrating their  gift  to  the  Great  Giver.  Were  poets  acting 
on  his  advice,  we  should  have  every  one  of  them  ready  to 
"  give  a  reason"  for  the  inspiration  that  was  in  him ;  and  what 
is  much  better,  all  singing  harmoniously  with  the  harps  of 
angels  around  the  manger  at  Bethlehem  and  the  empty  grave 
of  the  Risen  Redeemer.  He  has  also  attempted  to  distin- 
guish the  differentia  of  genius — finding  the  meaning  of  it  in 
the  name — which  so  closely  connects  it  with  the  genial  nature 
and  the  spontaneous  powers — a  distinction  which  De  Quincey 
Las  recently  borrowed,  and  illustrated  with  his  usual  felicity. 

What  a  book  the  "  Collected  Criticisms  of  S.  T.  (alas  not 
St.  /)  Coleridge"  might  have  been,  had  he  written  a  hundred 
papers  like  that  he  wrote  about  Sir  T.  Browne,  on  the  blank 
leaf  of  one  of  his  volumes  !  But  a  completed  Coleridge  had 
been  too  noble  a  product  for  us  as  yet — "  a  thing  to  dream  of, 
not  to  see,"  It  is  a  curious  question — "Are  such  tantalising 
fragments  finished  in  another  world  ?"  If  so,  how  interesting 


200  MODERN    CRITICS. 


the  spectacle  of  a  mild-tempered  Milton — a  humble  and  bend- 
ing Byron — a  Shelley  on  his  knees — a  Goethe  warmed  into  a 
seraph,  and  "  summering  high  in  bliss  upon  the  hills  of  God  " 
— a  many-sided  Southey  —  a  wide-minded  Wordsworth — a 
believing  Godwin — a  healthy  and  happy  Keats — a  holy  Burns 
— a  Poe  "  clothed  and  in  his  right  mind" — a  Coleridge  with 
the  crevices  in  his  nature  filled  up,  and  his  self-control  made 
equal  to  his  transcendent  genius  !  Whether  the  future  world 
may  show  us  such  rounded  harmonies  as  our  words  have  thus 
described  we  cannot  tell ;  but  certainly  it  is  very  pleasant  to 
conceive  of  them  as  possible,  and  to  form  idealisms  of  the 
future  of  men,  who,  on  this  earth  compassed  about  with  infir- 
mities, and  even  betrayed  into  deep  and  fatal  errors,  have  yet 
forced  their  irresistible  way  into  the  admiration  of  our  intel- 
lects, and  the  pity  or  love  of  our  hearts. 


NO.  III.-DELTA.* 

(  This  paper  appeared  in  August,  1851.) 

THE  name,  or  rather  the  mark  of  A,  is  a  magic  mark  through- 
out the  entire  kingdom  of  British  literature.  The  gentleman 
who  chooses  thus  to  subscribe  himself  is  favorably  known  as  a 
poet,  as  a  writer  on  medical  literature,  as  the  author  of  a  very 
successful  Scotch  novel,  yclept  "  Mansie  Wauch,"  as  one  of 
the  principal  contributors  and  conductors  of  "  Blackwood's 
Magazine,"  and  as  a  most  amiable  and  accomplished  private 
person.  Nor  are  we  sure,  if,  all  things  considered,  any  man, 
whether  in  England  or  Scotland,  could  have  been  singled  out, 
who  was  likely  to  manage  the  difficult  and  complicated  subject 
of  these  lectures  in  a  safer,  a  more  candid,  and  less  exception- 
able style,  than  Dr.  Moir — especially  before  an  audience  so 
constituted,  that  one-half  came  probably  with  the  notion  (how- 
ever ludicrous  this  presumption  may  seem  to  all  others)  that 

*  Sketches  of  the  Poetical  Literature  of  the  Past  Half-Century, 
delivered  before  the  Edinburgh  Philosophical  Association,  by  DELTA. 


DELTA.  £01 

any  one  of  themselves  might  have  treated  the  subject  better 
than  he ! 

But,  apart  altogether  from  the  composition  of  his  audience 
— peculiar  and  unique,  we  believe,  in  the  world — Delta  has 
nobly  eifected  his  purpose.  That  was  to  express  honestly  and 
in  simple  language,  without  shrinking,  and  without  show,  his 
own  views  and  feelings  as  to  our  last  half-century's  poetical 
literature.  And  it  is  fortunate  for  us,  and  all  his  readers, 
that  these  are  the  views  of  no  narrow  sectarian,  or  soured 
bigot,  or  self-conceited  and  solemn  twaddler — but  of  an  en- 
lightened, wide-minded,  and  warm-hearted  man,  whose  very 
errors  and  mistakes  are  worthy  of  respectful  treatment,  and 
all  of  whose  opinions  are  uttered  from  the  sincerity  of  an 
honest  heart,  and  in  the  eloquent  and  dignified  language  of  a 
poet. 

Had  we  a  thousand  pens,  each  should  run  on,  like  that  of  a 
"  ready  writer,"  in  the  praise  of  poetry.  Assuredly,  among 
the  many  sweets  which  Glod  has  infused  into  the  cup  of 
being  among  the  many  solaces  of  this  life,  the  many  relics 
of  the  primeval  past,  the  many  foretastes  of  the  glorious 
future,  there  are  few  more  delicious  than  the  influences  of 
poetry.  It  transports  us  from  the  dust  and  discord  of  the 
present  troubled  sphere  into  its  own  fair  world.  It  "  lays 
us,"  as  Hazlitt  beautifully  says,  "  in  the  lap  of  a  lovelier 
nature,  by  stiller  streams,  and  fairer  meadows;"  it  invigo- 
rates the  intellect  by  the  elevated  truth  which  is  its  substance; 
it  enriches  the  imagination  by  the  beauty  of  its  pictures ;  it 
enlarges  the  mental  view  by  the  width  and  grandeur  of  its 
references ;  it  inflames  the  aifections  by  the  "  touch  ethereal 
of  its  fiery  rod ;"  it  purifies  the  morals  by  the  powers  of  pity 
and  terror ;  and,  when  concentrated  and  hallowed,  it  becomes 
the  most  beautiful  handmaid  in  the  train  of  faith,  and  may  be 
seen  with  graceful  attitude  sprinkling  the  waters  of  Castalia 
on  the  roses  in  the  garden  of  God.  The  pleasures  which 
poetry  gives  are  as  pure  as  they  are  exquisite.  Like  the 
manna  of  old,  they  seem  to  descend  from  a  loftier  climate — 
not  of  the  earth,  earthy,  but  of  celestial  birth,  they  point  back 
to  heaven  as  their  future  and  final  home.  They  bear  every 
reflection,  and  they  awaken  no  re-action.  A  night  with  the 
Muses  never  produces  a  morning  with  the  Fiends.  The  world 


202  MODERN     CRITICS. 


into  which  poetry  introduces  is  always  the  same.  The  "  Sun 
of  Homer  shines  upon  us  still."  The  meadows  of  genius  are 
for  ever  fresh  and  green.  The  skies  of  imagination  continually 
smile.  The  actual  world  changes — the  ideal  is  always  one 
and  the  same — Achilles  is  always  strong — Helen  is  always 
fair — Mount  Ida  continually  cleaves  the  clouds — Scamander 
rushes  ever  by — the  Eve  of  Milton  still  stands  ankle  deep  in 
the  flowers  of  her  garden — and  the  horn  of  Fitzjames  winds 
in  the  gorge  of  the  Trosachs  for  evermore.  And  when  we 
remember  that  above  the  storms  and  surges  of  this  tempestu- 
ous world  there  rises  in  the  pages  of  the  poet  a  fairy  realm, 
which  he  who  reads  may  reach,  and  straightway  forget  his 
sorrow,  and  remember  his  poverty  no  more,  we  see  the  debt 
of  gratitude  we  owe  to  poetry,  and,  looking  at  the  perennial 
peace  and  loveliness  which  surround  her  wherever  she  goes, 
we  feel  entitled  to  apply  to  her  the  beautiful  lines  originally 
addressed  to  the  bird  of  spring — 

"  Sweet  bird,  thy  bower  is  ever  fair 

Thy  sky  is  ever  clear ; 
Thou  hast  no  sorrow  in  thy  song, 
No  winter  in  thy  year." 

Love — pure,  refined,  insatiable  affection — for  the  beautiful 
forms  of  this  material  universe,  for  the  beautiful  affections  of 
the  human  soul,  for  the  beautiful  passages  of  the  history  of 
the  past,  for  the  beautiful  prospects  which  expand  before  us  in 
the  future — such  love  burning  to  passion,  attired  in  imagery, 
and  speaking  in  music,  is  the  essence  and  the  soul  of  poetry. 
It  is  this  which  makes  personification  the  life  of  poetry.  The 
poet  looks  upon  nature,  not  with  the  philosopher,  as  com- 
posed of  certain  abstractions,  certain  "  cold  material  laws;" 
but  he  breathes  upon  them,  and  they  quicken  into  personal 
life,  and  become  objects  as  it  wore  of  personal  attachment. 
The  winds  with  him  are  not  cold  currents  of  air,  they  are  mes- 
sengers, they  are  couriers — the  messengers  of  destiny,  the 
couriers  of  God ;  the  rainbow  is  not  a  mere  prismatic  effect  of 
light ;  but  to  the  poet,  in  the  language  of  the  Son  of  Sirach, 
"  it  encompasseth  the  heavens  with  a  glorious  circle,  and  the 
hands  of  the  Most  High  have  bended  it."  The  lightning  is 
not  simply  an  electric  discharge,  it  is  a  barbed  arrow  of  ven- 


DELTA.  203 

geance,  it  is  winged  with  death ;  the  thunder  is  not  so  much 
an  elemental  uproar,  as  it  is  the  voice  of  God ;  the  stars  are 
not  so  much  distant  worlds,  as  they  are  eyes  looking  down  on 
men  with  intelligence,  sympathy,  and  love ;  the  ocean  is  not  a 
dead  mass  of  waters,  it  is  a  "  glorious  mirror  to  the  Almighty's 
form;"  the  sky  is  not  to  the  poet  a  "foul  and  pestilent  con- 
gregation of  vapors,"  it  is  a  magnificent  canopy  "  fretted  with 
golden  fire,"  nay,  to  his  anointed  eye  every  blade  of  grass 
lives,  every  flower  has  its  sentiment,  every  tree  its  moral,  and 

"  Visions,  as  poetic  eyes  avow, 
Hang  in  each  leaf,  and  cling  to  every  bough." 

This  perpetual  personification  springs  from  that  principle  of 
love  which  teaches  the  poet  not  only  to  regard  all  men  as  his 
brethren,  the  whole  earth  as  his  home,  but  to  throw  his  own 
excess  of  soul  into  dumb,  deaf,  and  dead  things,  and  to  find 
even  in  them  subjects  of  his  sympathy,  and  candidates  for  his 
regard.  It  was  in  this  spirit  that  poor  Burns  did  not  disdain 
to  address  the  mouse  running  from  his  ploughshare  as  his 
"  fellow-mortal,"  and  bespeak  even  the  ill-fated  daisy,  which 
the  same  ploughshare  destroyed — say  rather  transplanted  into 
the  garden  of  never-dying  song — 

"  Wee,  modest,  crimson-tippet  flower, 
Thou'st  met  me  in  an  evil  hour, 
And  I  maun  crush  below  the  stoure 

Thy  feeble  stem ; 
To  spare  thee  noo  is  past  my  power, 

Thou  bonnie  gem. 

Alas !  it's  no  thy  neebor  sweet, 

The  blithesome  lark,  companion  meet, 

Bending  thee  'mang  the  dewy  weet, 

Wi'  spreckled  breast, 
While  upward  springing,  blithe  to  greet 

The  purpling  East." 

Nor,  so  long  as  love  and  the  personifying  principle  spring- 
ing from  it  exist,  are  we  afraid  for  the  decline  or  fall  of  poe- 
try. Dr.  Moir,  we  humbly  conceive,  has  a  morbid  and  need 
less  horror  at  the  progress  of  science ;  he  speaks  with  a  sort 
of  timid  hope  of  "  poetry  ultimately  recovering  from  the 
staggering  blows  which  science  has  inflicted,  in  the  shape  of 
steam  conveyance,  of  electro-magnetism,  of  geological  exposi- 
tion, of  political  economy,  of  statistics — in  fact,  by  a  series 


204  MODERN    CRITICS. 


of  disenchantments,  original  genius,  in  due  time  must  from 
new  elements  frame  new  combinations,  and  these  may  be  at 
least  what  the  kaleidoscope  is  to  the  rainbow,  or  an  explosion 
of  hydrogen  in  the  gasometer  to  a  flash  of  lightning  on  the 
hills.  But  this  alters  not  my  position — that  all  facts  are 
prose  until  colored  by  imagination  or  passion.  From  physic 
we  have  swept  away  alchemy,  incantation,  and  cure  by  the 
royal  touch ;  from  divinity,  exorcism,  and  purgatory,  and  ex- 
communication ;  and  from  law,  the  trial  by  wager  of  battle, 
the  ordeal  by  touch,  and  the  mysterious  confessions  of  witch- 
craft. In  the  foamy  seas  we  can  never  more  expect  to  see 
Proteus  leading  out  his  flocks ;  nor  in  the  dimpling  stream 
another  Narcissus  admiring  his  own  fair  face ;  nor  Diana  again 
descending  on  Latinos  to  Endymion.  We  cannot  hope  ano- 
ther Una  '  making  a  sunshine  in  the  shady  place;'  nor  another 
Macbeth  meeting  with  other  witches  on  the  blasted  heath  ;  nor 
another  Faust  wandering  amid  the  mysterious  sights  and 
sounds  of  another  May-day  night.  Robin  Hoods  and  Rob 
Roys  are  incompatible  with  sheriffs  and  the  county  police ; 
rocks  are  stratified  by  geologists  exactly  as  satins  are  mea- 
sured by  mercers;  and  Echo,  no  longer  a  vagrant  classical 
nymph,  is  compelled  quietly  to  succumb  to  the  laws  of  acous- 
tics." 

He  says  again,  "  Exactness  of  knowledge  is  a  barrier  to  the 
laying  on  of  that  coloring  by  which  alone  facts  can  be  invest- 
ed with  the  illusive  lines  of  poetry."  And  again,  he  defines 
"  poetry  the  imaginative  and  limitless,  and  science  the  definite 
and  true;"  and  says,  "  Poetry  has  ever  found  '  the  haunt  and 
the  main  region  of  her  song'  either  in  the  grace  and  beauty 
which  cannot  be  analysed,  or  in  the  sublime  of  the  indefinite. 
Newton  with  his  dissection  of  the  rainbow,  Anson  with  his 
circumnavigation  of  the  earth,  and  Franklin  with  his  lightning- 
kite,  were  all  disenchanters.  Angels  no  longer  alight  on  the 
iris ;  Milton's  sea-covered  sea — sea  without  shore ' — is  a  geo- 
graphical untruth ;  and  in  the  thunder  men  no  more  hear  the 
voice  of  the  Deity." 

Thus  far,  Delta — and  very  beautiful  and  ingenious  these 
illustrations  are.  But,  first,  many  of  the  things  he  mentions, 
although  banished  from  the  province  of  belief,  are  not  thereby 
banished  from  that  of  poetry,  or  of  that  quasi-belief  which 


DELTA.  205 

good  poetry  produces.  Milton,  not  Milton's  age,  believed  in 
the  Heathen  Mythology ;  and  yet  how  beautifully  has  he 
made  it  subserve  poetical  purposes.  Scott  had  no  faith  in 
ghosts  or  witchcraft,  or  the  second  sight,  and  yet  he  has  turned 
them  to  noble  imaginative  account;  and  when  he  speaks  of. the 
second  sight  as  being  now  "  abandoned  to  the  purposes  of  poe- 
try," he  truly  describes  a  common  process,  the  fact  of  which 
is  fatal  to  Delta's  theory — a  process  through  which  sublime 
and  beautiful  illusions  of  all  kinds,  cast  out  of  man's  under- 
standing, take  refuge  in  his  imagination,  and  become  a  rich 
stock  of  materials  for  the  poet.  Godwin,  too,  did  not  believe 
in  alchemy,  and  yet  he  has  founded  a  magnificent  prose  poem 
upon  an  alchemist's  imaginary  story. 

Nay,  secondly,  the  farther  we  advance  beyond  the  point  of 
believing  such  illusions,  their  poetic  value  and  power  are  often 
enhanced.  An  English  boy,  we  venture  to  say,  reads  the 
"Arabian  Nights  "with  more  generous  gusto,  with  more  in- 
tense delight,  than  did  ever  a  boy  in  Bagdad.  What  compar- 
ison between  all  the  ancient  minstrels  put  together,  and  the 
minstrel  lays  or  minstrel  prose  of  Scott,  who  wrote  in  the 
nineteenth  century  ?  What  grey  primeval  father  ever  felt,  or 
could  ever  have  expressed,  the  beauty  of  the  feeling  for  the 
rainbow  as  Campbell  has  done  ?  And  did  not  John  Keats — • 
a  Cockney  youth — breathe  a  new  poetic  spirit  into  the  pagan 
Mythus,  and  throne  its  gods  in  statelier  and  more  starry  man- 
sions than  Homer  or  ^schylus  themselves  ?  Not  only  is  a 
"  thing  of  beauty  a  joy  for  ever,"  but  its  beauty  swells  and 
deepens  with  time.  Ail  those  illusions  to  which  Delta  so  elo- 
quently refers — in  medicine,  law,  and  physics — although  thrust 
forth  from  the  inner  shrine  of  truth,  linger  on,  in  their  highest 
ideal  shapes,  in  the  beautiful  porch  of  poetry.  There  stands 
still  the  Alchemist,  the  smoke  of  his  great  sacrifice  to  nature 
still  crossing  his  countenance,  and  giving  a  mystic  wildness  to 
his  aspect ;  there  the  Witch  still  mutters  her  spell,  and  thick- 
ens her  infernal  broth;  there  the  Ghost  disturbed  tells,  as  he 
walks  with  troubled  steps,  the  secrets  of  his  prison-house,  his 
own  shadowy  hair  on  end  in  its  immortal  horror;  there  the- 
Marinere,  returned  from  a  far  countrie,  speaks  of  antres  vast 
and  deserts  idle — of  spectre  ships  sailing  upon  windless  oceans 
— of  spirits  sitting  amid  the  shrowds  at  midnight — of  double 


200  MODERN    CRITICS. 


suns  and  bloody  rainbows ;  there  Scheherezade  continues  her 
ever-wondrous  and  ever-widening  tale ;  there  still  twangs  the 
bow  of  Robin  Hood,  and  wave  the  feathers  of  Rob  Roy ; 
there,  as  the  Earthquake  at  times  shakes  the  ground,  it  seems 
the  spasm  of  an  imprisoned  giant ;  as  a  sunbeam  of  peculiar 
beauty  slants  in,  Uriel  is  seen  descending  upon  it ;  and  as  the 
thunder  utters  its  tremendous  monotony,  there  are  still  voices 
ready  to  exclaim,  "  God  hath  spoken  once,  yea,  twice  have  I 
heard  this,  Power  belongeth  unto  God.'1  Still  to  fancy  and  to 
feeling — to  imagination's  quick  ear,  and  to  passion's  burning 
heart — "  all  things  are  possible." 

Thirdly,  Delta,  we  think,  unduly  restricts  the  domain  of 
poetry,  when  he  strikes  out  from  its  map  the  provinces  of  the 
definite  and  the  true.  We  grant  that  often  poetry  loves  to 
wear  a  robe  of  moonlight,  and  a  scarf  of  mist,  as  she  walks 
along  in  her  beauty.  But  there  is  also  a  severe,  purged,  and 
lofty  poetry  which  delights  in  the  naked  light  of  truth — the 
clear  shining  of  a  morning  without  clouds.  Such  was  the 
poetry  of  Homer,  of  Chaucer,  of  Crabbe,  and  many  others. 
Such  is  the  principal  part  of  what  is  called  didactic  poetry. 
Such  poetry,  too,  is  found  in  abundance  in  Scripture,  and  has 
obtained  from  critics  the  name  of  Gnomic,  or  Sententious 
Bong.  Now,  it  is  certain  that  the  advance  of  definite  knowl- 
edge must  tend  to  the  perfectionment  of  this  species  of  poetry, 
since  it  loves  to  deal  with  direct  facts,  definite  propositions, 
and  the  higher  of  the  works  of  art. 

Fourthly,  Delta  omits  to  notice,  that  while  some  of  those 
indefinitudes  and  sublimities  in  which  poetry  has  often  hither- 
to delighted  to  revel,  may  yield  before  advancing  science  and 
civilisation,  others,  of  perhaps  a  grander  cast,  shall  take  their 
room.  He  is  aware  that  in  ancient  dernonology,  next,  or  even 
superior,  as  an  hour  for  starting  a  spirit  to  the  noon  of  night, 
was  the  noon  of  day.  We  are  at  present  in  a  transition  state. 
The  sun  of  science  has  risen,  but  has  not  reached  his  meridian. 
Consequently,  the  poetry  of  science,  or  of  philosophy,  has  not 
fully  arrived.  But  arrive  it  shall,  in  due  time,  and  in  our  no- 
tion must  be  of  a  far  higher  cast  than  the  poetry  of  supersti- 
tion— beautiful  as  that  was,  is,  and  must  continue  to  be.  Lu- 
cretius was  in  the  rear  of  Epicurus — Milton  after  Luther — 
and  Scott  after  Chivalry.  We  must  wait  for  the  advent  of 


DELTA.  207 

those  poets  who  shall  set  to  song  the  great  discoveries  and 
philosophies  of  our  day.  Nay,  even  at  present,  we  can  detect 
the  germs  of  poetry  in  our  advancing  knowledge.  "  The  hea- 
vens," says  Hazlitt,  "  have  gone  farther  off."  -  Strange,  in- 
deed, if  the  telescope  has  pushed  them  away  !  Surely,  if  the 
"  cusps  "  of  the  "  houses  "  of  astrology  have  left  us,  the  con- 
stellations and  firmaments  of  the  universe  have  come  nearer. 
"  There  shall  never  be  another  Jacob's  Dream."  Never — for 
we  have  now  a  "  more  sure  word  of  prophecy,"  and  "  new 
heavens"  are  coming!  We,  for  our  parts,  venture  to  hope 
that  the  "witching  time "  of  noon  is  near.  "Poetry,"  says 
one,  "  shall  lead  in  a  new  age,  even  as  there  is  a  star  in  the 
constellation  Harp  which  shall  yet,  astronomers  tell  us,  be  the 
polar  star  for  a  thousand  years."  May  we  not  be  fast  nearing 
that  star  ?  All  the  sciences  are  already  employed,  and  may 
yet  be  more  solemnly  enlisted  into  the  service  of  poetic  song. 
Botany  shall  go  forth  into  the  fields  and  the  woods,  collect 
her  fairest  flowers,  and  bind  them  with  a  chaplet  for  the  brow 
of  Poetry.  Conchology  from  the  waters,  and  from  the  ocean 
shores,  shall  gather  her  loveliest  shells,  and  hark  !  when  up- 
lifted to  the  ear  of  Poetry, 

"  Pleased  they  remember  their  august  abodes. 
And  murmur  as  the  ocean  murmurs  there." 

As  Anatomy  continues  to  lay  bare  the  human  frame,  so  fear- 
fully and  wonderfully  made,  Poetry  shall  breathe  upon  the 
"  dry  bones,"  and  they  shall  live.  Chemistry  shall  lead  Poe- 
try to  the  side  of  her  furnace,  and  show  her  transformations 
scarcely  less  marvellous  and  magical  than  her  own.  Geology, 
with  bold  yet  trembling  hand,  lifting  up  the  veil  from  the  his- 
tory of  past  worlds — from  cycles  of  ruin  and  of  renovation — 
shall  allow  the  eye  of  Poetry  to  look  down  in  wonder,  and  to 
look  up  in  fire.  And  Astronomy  shall  conduct  Poetry  to  her 
observatory,  and  mingle  her  own  joy  with  kers,  as  they  behold 
the  spectacle  of  that  storm  of  suns,  which  is  blowing  in  the 
midnight  sky.  In  the  prospect  of  the  progress  of  this  last 
science,  indeed,  we  see  opening  up  the  loftiest  of  conceivable 
fields  for  the  poet.  Who  has  hitherto  adequately  sung  the 
wonders  of  the  Newtonian — how  much  less  of  the  Herschelian 
heavens  1  And  who  is  waiting,  with  his  lyre  in  his  hands,  to 


208  MODERN    CRITICS. 


praise  the  steep-rising  splendors  of  the  Kossian  skies  :  We 
have  the  "  Night  Thoughts" — a  noble  strain,  but  a  whole 
century  behind  the  present  stage  of  the  science  ;  but  who  shall 
write  us  a  poem  on  "  Night"  worthy,  in  some  measure,  of  the 
solemn  yet  spirit-stirring  theme  ?  Sootier  or  later  it  must  be 
done.  The  Milton  of  Midnight  must  yet  arrive. 

Coleridge  somewhere  profoundly  remarks,  that  all  knowl- 
edge begins  with  wonder,  passes  through  an  interspace  of  ad- 
miration mixed  with  research,  and  ends  in  wonder  again.  Now 
what  is  true  of  knowledge  is  true  of  poetry.  She,  too,  begins 
with  wonder ;  and  from  this  feeling  have  sprung  her  first  rude 
and  stuttering  strains.  Admiration,  culture,  the  artistic  use 
of  the  wonders  of  the  past  succeed,  and  to  this  stage  we  have 
now  come.  But  we  may  yet  rise,  and  that  speedily,  to  a 
higher  and  almost  ideal  height,  when  the  stationary  unuttera- 
ble wonder  of  the  first  poetic  age  shall  be  superadded  to  the 
admiration  and  art  of  the  second,  and  when  the  new  and  per- 
fect poetry  shall  include  both.  The  infant,  abashed  at  some 
great  spectacle,  covers  his  face  with  his  little  hands ;  the  man 
stands  erect,  with  curious  kindling  eye  before  it ;  the  true  phil- 
osopher imitates  the  attitude  of  the  angels,  who,  nobler  infants, 
"  veil  their  faces  with  their  wings."  So  poetry  at  first  prat- 
tles bashfully,  it  then  admires  learnedly,  and  at  last  it  bends, 
yet  burns,  in  seraphic  homage. 

Visions  go,  but  truths  succeed  or  remain.  The  rainbow 
ceases  to  be  the  bridge  of  angels,  but  not  to  be  the  prism  of 
God.  The  thunder  is  no  longer  the  voice  of  capricious  and 
new  kindled  wrath,  but  is  it  not  still  the  echo  of  conscience  ? 
and  does  it  not  speak  to  all  the  higher  principles  in  the  human 
soul  ?  The  stars  are  no  longer  the  geographical  limits  or 
guides  of  man's  history;  but  are  they  not  now  milestones  in 
the  city  not  made  with  hands — the  city  of  God  ?  The  uni- 
verse has  lost  those  imaginary  shapes  or  forms  by  .which  men 
of  old  sought  to  define  and  bound  it;  but  it  has,  instead, 
stretched  away  indefinitely,  and  become  that  "  sea  without 
shore  "  of  which  Milton  dreamed.  The  Genii  imagined  to 
preside  over  the  Elements  have  vanished;  but,  instead  of 
them,  the  Elements  themselves  have  gained  a  mystic  import- 
ance, and  sit  in  state  upon  their  secret  thrones,  till  some  new 
one  power,  perhaps,  rises  to  displace  and  include  them.  all. 


209 


The  car  of  Neptune  scours  the  deep  no  more ;  but  th<  re  is, 
instead,  the  great  steam-vessel  walking  the  calm  waters  in  tri- 
umphant beauty,  or  else  wrestling  like  a  demon  of  kindred 
power,  with  the  angry  billows.  Apollo  and  the  Muses  are 
gone ;  but  in  their  room  there  stands  the  illimitable,  uudefin- 
able  thing  called  Genius — the  electricity  of  the  intellect — the 
divinest  element  in  the  mind  of  man.  Newton  "  dissected  the 
rainbow,"  but  left  it  the  rainbow  still.  Auson  "  circumnavi- 
gated the  earth,"  but  it  still  wheels  round  the  sun,  blots  out 
at  times  the  moon,  and  carries  a  Hell  of  caverned  mysterious 
fire  in  its  breast.  Franklin  brought  down  the  lightnings  on 
his  kite ;  but,  although  they  said  to  him,  "  Here  we  are," 
they  did  not  tell  him,  "  This  or  that  are  we."  In  short, 
beauty,  power,  all  the  poetical  influences  and  elements,  retire 
continually  before  us  like  the  horizon,  and  the  end  and  the 
place  of  them  are  equally  and  for  ever  unknown. 

Delta  is,  as  all  who  are  acquainted  with  him  know,  a  man 
of  genuine,  though  unobtrusive,  piety.  Every  line  of  his  po- 
etry  proves  him  a  Christian.  And  it  is  on  this  account  that 
we  venture  to  ask  him,  in  fine,  how  will  this  theory  of  his  con- 
sort with  the  doctrine  of  man's  immortal  progress  ?  how 
account  for  the  ever-welling  poetry  of  the  "  New  Song  ?"  and 
how  explain  the  attitude  of  those  beings  who,  knowing  God 
best,  admire  him  the  most,  praise  him  most  vehemently,  and 
pour  out  before  him  the  richest  incense  of  wonder  and  wor- 
ship ?  Here  is  poetry  surviving  amid  the  very  blaze  of  celes- 
tial vision ;  and  surely  we  need  not  expect  that  any  stage  of 
mental  advancement  on  earth  can  ever  see  its  permanent  de- 
cline or  decay. 

If  we  have  dwelt  rather  long  upon  this  point,  it  is  partly  be- 
cause we  count  it  a  question  of  considerable  moment ;  because 
we  think  Delta's  notion  in  reference  to  it  is  pushed  forward 
somewhat  prominently,  and  more  than  once,  and  because  it  is 
one  of  the  few  theories  in  the  book  which,  while  it  has  a  general 
character,  is  susceptible  of  special  objections.  We  have  in- 
deed still  one  or  two  of  his  minor  statements  to  combat.  But 
we  pass,  first,  with  sincere  gratification,  to  speak  of  the  main 
merits  of  his  book. 

The  most  prominent,  perhaps,  of  these,  is  Catholicity.  Ho 
is  a  generous,  as  well  as  a  just,  judge.  He  has  looked  over 


210  MODERN    CRITICS. 


the  poetry  of  the  last  fifty  years  with  an  eye  of  wise  love. 
Finding  two  schools  in  our  literature,  which,  after  a  partial  and 
hollow  truce,  are  gradually  diverging,  if  not  on  the  point  of 
breaking  out,  into  open  hostility,  he  has,  in  some  measure, 
acted  as  a  mediator  between  them.  Not  concealing  his  pecu- 
liar favor  for  the  one,  he  is  yet  candid  and  eloquent  in  his 
appreciation  of  the  demi-gods  of  the  other.  Adoring  Scott, 
he  is  just  to  Shelley.  He  sees  the  fire  mingled  with  mysticism, 
"like  tongues  of  flame  amid  the  smoke  of  a  conflagration;" 
but  he  greatly  prefers  the  swept  hearth  and  the  purged,  clear, 
columnar  flames  of  the  ancient  Homeric  manner.  Inclining 
to  what  he  thinks  the  more  excellent  way,  he  does  not  denounce 
as  a  dunce  or  an  impostor  every  one  who  has  chosen,  or  who 
encourages  others  in  choosing,  another  and  a  more  perilous 
style.  The  energy  and  beauty  of  his  praise  show,  moreover,  its 
sincerity.  False  or  ignorant  panegyric  may  easily  be  detected. 
It  is  clumsy,  careless,  and  fulsome ;  it  often  praises  writers 
for  qualities  they  possess  not,  or  it  singles  out  their  faults 
for  beauties,  or  by  overdoing,  overleaps  itself,  and  falls  on  the 
other  side.  It  now  gives  black  eyes  to  the  Saxon,  and  now 
fair  hair  to  the  Italian — commends  Milton  for  his  equality, 
Dryden  for  his  imagination,  Pope  for  his  nature,  and  Byron 
for  his  truth.  Very  different  with  honest  praise.  It  shows, 
first,  by  the  stroke  of  a  moment,  the  man  it  means,  and  after 
drawing  a  strong  and  hard  outline  of  his  general  character,  it 
makes  the  finer  and  warmer  shades  flush  over  it  gently  and 
swiftly,  as  the  vivid  green  of  spring  passes  over  the  fields. 
And  such  always,  or  generally,  is  the  distinct,  yet  imaginative, 
the  clear  and  eloquent  praise  of  Delta. 

He  goes  to  criticise,  too,  in  the  spirit  of  a  poet.  Prosaic 
criticism  of  poetry  is  a  nuisance  which  neither  we  nor  our 
fathers  have  been  able  to  bear.  A  drunkard  cursing  the 
moon — a  maniac  foaming  at  some  magnificent  statue,  which 
stands  serene  and  safe  above  his  reach — or  a  ruffian  crushing 
roses  on  his  way  to  midnight  plunder,  is  but  a  type  of  the  sad 
work  which  a  clever,  but  heartless  and  unimaginative,  critic 
often  makes  of  works  of  genius.  Nay,  there  is  a  class,  less 
despicable,  but  more  pernicious,  who  make  their  moods  and 
states  piny  the  critic — now  the  moods  of  their  mind,  and  now 
the  states  of  their  stomach,  the  verdicts  of  which,  neverthe- 


DELTA.  211 

less,  issued  in  cold,  oracular  print,  are  received  "by  the  public 
as   veracious.     There   is  a   set,   again,  whose  criticisms  are 
formed  upon  the  disgustingly  dishonest  principle  of  picking 
out  all  the  faults,  and  ignoring  all  the  beauties,  of  a  composi- 
tion ;  and  who  do  not  give  the  faults  even  the  poor  advantage 
of  showing  them  in  their  context.     And  there  are  those  who 
judge  of  books  by  their  publisher,  or  by  the  nation  of  their 
author,  or  by  his  profession,  or  by  his  reputed  creed.     It  were 
certainly  contemptible  to  allude  to  the  existence  of  such  rep- 
tiles at  all,  were  it  not  that  they  are  permitted  to  crawl  in 
some  popular  periodicals ;  that  they  shelter  under,  and  abuse 
the  shade  of  the  "  Anonymous;"  and  that  they  have  prevailed 
to  retard  the  wider  circulation  of  the  writings,  without  being 
able  to  check  the  spread  of  the  fame,  of  some  of  the  most 
gifted  of  our  living  men.     To  take  one  out  of  many  cases,  we 
simply  ask  the  question,  Have  some  of  our  leading  London 
journals  ever  taken  the  slightest  notice  of  any  one  of  the 
works  of  perhaps  the  most  eloquent  and  powerful  genius  at 
present  alive  in  Britain — we  mean  Professor  Wilson  ?     And 
if  this  has  been  little  loss  to  him,  has  it  been  less  a  disgrace 
to  them  V     Delta  is  altogether  a  man  of  another  spirit.     He 
is  at  once  a  poet  and  a  gentleman ;  and  how  fortunate  were 
many  of  our  critics,  could  he  transfer  even  the  lesser  half  of 
this  fine  whole  to  them  !     His  genial  enthusiasm  never,  or  sel- 
dom, blinds  his  discriminating  eyesight.     And  throughout  all 
this  volume  he  has  praised  very  few  indeed  who  have  not,  in  some 
field  or  another  of  poetry,  eminently  distinguished  themselves. 
We  mention  again  the  wide  knowledge  of  the  poetry  of  the 
period  which  his  lectures  display.     This  bursts  out,  as  it  were, 
at  every  pore  of  the  book.     There  is  no  appearance  of  cram- 
ming for  his  task,  although  here  and  there  he  does  allude  to 
writers  who  have  either,  per  se,  or  per  alias,  been  thrust  into 
the  field  of  his  view.     We  notice,  however,  that  he  has  made 
one  or  two  important  omissions.     His  silence  as  to  Sydney 
Yendys,  was,  we  understand,  an  oversight.     The  slip  contain- 
ing a  criticism  of  "  The  Roman,"  accidentally  dipped  out  as 
the  printing  was  going  on.     It  was  the  same  with  a  notice  of 
Taylor's  "  Eve  of  the  Conquest."     Other  blanks  there  are, 
but,  on  the  whole,  when  we  consider  the  width  of  thfi  field  he 
has  traversed,  the  marvel  is  that  they  are  so  few. 


212  MODERN    CRITICS 


We  have  a  more  serious  objection  to  state.  It  is  with  re- 
gard to  the  scale  he  has  (in  effect,  though  indirectly)  con- 
structed of  our  poets.  Scott  he  sets  "alone  and  above  all;" 
then  he  places  Wordsworth,  Byron,  Wilson,  and  Coleridge,  on 
one  level — Campbell,  Southey,  James  Montgomery,  Moore, 
and  Crabbe,  seem  to  stand  in  the  next  file;  then  come  Pollok, 
Aird,  Croly,  and  Milman;  then  Keats,  Shelley,  and  Tenny- 
son ;  and,  in  fine,  the  ol  TTO/./.OI,  the  minor,  or  rising  poets. 
Delta  will  pardon  us  if  we  have  mistaken  his  meaning,  but 
this  has  been  the  impression  left  on  us  by  the  perusal  of  his 
lectures.  Now,  admitting  that  Scott,  in  breadth,  variety, 
health,  dramatic  and  descriptive  powers,  was  the  finest  writer 
of  his  age,  yet  surely  he  is  not  to  be  compared  as  a  poet  with 
many  others  of  the  time ;  nor  as  a  profound  thinker  and  con- 
summate artist,  with  such  men  as  Wordsworth  and  Coleridge. 
As  a  VAXES,  what  proportion  between  him  and  Shelley,  Keats 
and  Byron  ?  In  terseness  and  true  vigor,  he  yields  to  Crabbe ; 
and  in  lyrical  eloquence  and  fire,  to  Campbell.  Wilson,  as  a 
man  of  general  genius  and  Shakspearian  all-sidcduess,  is  infe- 
rior to  few  men  of  any  age;  but,  as  a  poet,  as  an  artist,  as  a 
writer,  has  done  nothing  entitling  him  to  rank  with  Byron, 
Wordsworth,  and  Coleridge.  Campbell  and  Crabbe  arc  com- 
mensurate names,  but  they  rank  as  poets  much  more  highly 
above  Southey  and  Montgomery  than  Delta  seems  willing  to 
admit.  And,  greatly  as  we  admire  Croly,  Aird,  and  Pollok, 
we  are  forced  to  set  Keats  and  Shelley  above  them  in  point  of 
richness  and  power  of  genius,  as  well  as  of  artistic  capacity. 

Delta,  in  his  capacity  of  poet,  is  not  uniformally  national ; 
but,  as  a  critic,  his  heart  beats  most  warmly,  and  his  language 
flows  out  with  most  enthusiasm  and  fluency,  toward  the  poets 
of  Scotland.  He  has  mingled  with  some  of  the  noblest  of 
English  spirits  too ;  may,  for  aught  we  know,  have  climbed 
Helvellyn  with  Wordsworth ;  has,  at  any  rate,  "  seated  at 
Coleridge's  bedside  at  Hampstead,  heard  him  recite  the  "  Mon- 
ody" to  Chatterton,  in  tones  "  delicate,  yet  deep,  and  long 
drawn  out ;"  but  he  has  evidently  been  on  terms  of  more  fond 
••••i;d  familiar  intercourse  with  the  bards  of  his  own  country. 
He  has  sat  occasionally  at  the  ''  Noctes  Ambrosianfe,"  has 
frequently  walked  with  Aird  through  the  sweet  gardens  of 
Dudd  ings  ton,  listened  to  Wilson  sounding  on  his  way  as  they 


DELTA.  213 

scaled  Arthur's  Seat  together,  or  to  Hogg  repeating  "  Kil- 
uieny,"  mingled  souls  with  poor  William  Motherwell,  and 
crossed  pipes  with  Dr.  Macnish,  the  Modern  Pythagorean  has 
read  the  "  Course  of  Time"  in  MS.,  and  now  arid  then  seen 
Abbotsford  in  its  glory,  while  the  white  peak  of  the  wizard's 
head  was  still  shining  amid  its  young  plantations.  Hence  a 
little  natural  exaggeration  in  speaking  of  the  men  and  the 
subjects  he  knows  best — an  exaggeration  honorable  to  his 
heart,  not  dishonorable  to  his  head,  and  which  does  not  detract 
much  from  the  value  of  his  estimates;  nay,  it  has  enabled  him, 
in  reference  to  Scottish  genius,  to  write  with  a  fine  combina- 
tion of  generous  ardor,  and  of  perfect  mastery.  Cordially  do 
we  unite  with  him  in  condemning  the  gross  affectations,  the 
deliberate  darkness,  the  foul  smoke,  and,  above  all,  the  assump- 
tion, exclusiveness,  and  conceit,  which  distinguish  the  writings 
of  our  minor  mystics ;  and  we  have  already  granted  that  he 
is  just  in  his  estimate  of  the  genius  of  many  of  the  higher 
members  of  the  school,  and  sincere  in  his  desire  to  produce  a 
reconciliation  between  them  and  their  more  lucid  and  classical 
brethren.  Still  we  could  have  wished  that  he  had  entered 
more  systematically  and  profoundly  into  the  points  of  differ- 
ence between  the  two  schools,  and  the  important  ajsthetical 
questions  which  are  staked  upon  their  resolution.  He  might, 
for  instance,  have  traced  the  origin  of  mystical  poetry  to  the 
fact  that  there  are  in  poetry  as  well  as  in  philosophy,  things 
hard  to  be  understood,  words  unutterable,  yet  pressing  against 
the  poet's  brain  for  utterance ;  have  shown  that  the  expression 
given  to  such  things  should  be  as  clear  and  simple  as  possible ; 
that  the  known  should  never  be  passed  off  for  the  unknown 
uuder  a  disguise  of  words  (even  as  a  full  might  be  mistaken 
for  a  crescent  moon,  behind  a  cloud  sufficiently  thick),  that  a 
mere  ambitious  desire  to  utter  the  unknown  should  never  be 
confounded  with  a  real  knowledge  of  any  of  its  mysterious 
provinces ;  that  as  no  system  of  mystical  philosophy  is,  as 
yet,  complete,  so  it  has  never  yet  been  the  inspiration  of  a 
truly  great  and  solid  poem,  although  it  has  produced  many 
beautiful  fragments — that  fragments  are  in  the  meantime  the 
•appropriate  tongue  of  the  mystical,  as  certainly  as  that  there 
is  no  encyclopedia  written  in  Sanscrit,  and  no  continent  com- 
posed of  aerolites — that  even  great  genius,  such  as  Shelley's 


214  MODERN    CRITICS. 


in  the  "  Prometheus,"  has  failed  in  building  up  a  long  and 
lofty  poem  upon  a  mystical  plan — that  alone,  of  British  men 
in  this  age,  Coleridge  so  thoroughly  comprehended  the  trans- 
cendental system,  as  to  have  been  able  to  write  its  epic, 
which  he  has  not  done — that  much  of  the  oracular  poetry  of 
the  day  is  oracular  nonsense,  the  spawn  of  undigested  learn- 
ing, or  the  stuff  of  morbid  dreams — that  the  day  for  great 
mystical  poems  may  yet  come,  but  that  meanwhile  we  are 
tempted  to  quote  Dr.  Johnson's  language  (whose  spontaneous 
and  sincere  sayings,  by  the  way,  are  seldom  if  ever  mistaken), 
in  reference  to  William  Law,  and  to  apply  it  to  our  Brownings, 
Herauds,  Pat  mores,  &c.  "  Law  fell  latterly  into  the  reveries 
of  Jacob  Behmen,  whom  he  alleged  to  have  been  in  the  same 
state  with  St.  Paul,  and  to  have  seen  unutterable  things;  but, 
were  it  even  so,  Jacob  would  have  resembled  St.  Paul  still 
more,  by  not  attempting  to  utter  them.'1'1 

Chaos,  no  doubt,  in  its  successive  stages,  was  a  poem,  but  it 
was  not  till  it  became  creation  that  it  was  said  of  it,  "  It  is 
very  good."  So  often  the  crude  confusions,  the  half-delivered 
thoughts,  the  gasping  utterances  of  a  true  poet  of  this  mysti- 
cal form,  have  a  grandeur  and  an  interest  in  them,  but  they, 
rather  tantalise  than  satisfy ;  and  when  they  pretend  to  com- 
pleteness and  poetic  harmony,  they  are  felt  to  insult  as  well 
as  tantalise. 

So  far  as  Delta  has  erred  on  this  subject,  it  is  in  that  he 
has  decried  mystic  poetry  per  se,  and  has  not  restricted  him- 
self to  the  particular  and  plentiful  examples  around  him  of 
bad  and  weak  poetry  "  hiding  itself,  because  it  was  afraid," 
among  trees  or  clouds — intricacies  of  verse  or  perplexities  of 
diction.  But,  even  as  from  science  advancing  towards  its  ideal 
there  may  be  expected  to  arise  a  severe  and  powerful  song,  so, 
when  man  becomes  more  conversant  with  the  mysteries  of  his 
own  spiritual  being — more  at  home  in  those  depths  within 
him,  which  angels  cannot  see — and  after  he  has  formed  a  more 
consistent  and  complete  theory  of  himself,  his  position  in  the 
universe,  his  relation  to  the  lower  animals  and  to  the  creation, 
his  relations  in  society  and  to  God — after,  in  one  word,  what 
is  now  called  mysticism  has  become  a  clear  and  mighty  tree, 
rising  from  darkness  and  clothing  itself  with  day  as  with  a 
garment,  then  may  it  not  become  musical  with  a  sweet,  a  full, 


DELTA.  215 

and  a  far-resounding  poetry,  to  which  A  himself,  notwithstand- 
ing all  the  characteristic  triangular  sharpness  of  his  intellec- 
tual perceptions,  would  listen  well  pleased  ?  It  is  this  hope 
alone  which  sustains  us,  as  we  see  the  new  gaining  so  rapidly 
upon  the  old,  in  the  domain  not  only  of  thought  but  of  poetry 
The  pseudo-transcendental  must  give  place  to  the  true. 

It  may  indeed  be  said>  "  But  will  not  thus  much  of  what  is 
indefinite — and,  therefore,  the  fairy  food  of  our  poetic  bees — 
disappear  ?''  We  answer,  as  we  have  replied  before  in  refer- 
ence to  science,  Yes,  but  only  to  be  replaced  by  a  more  ethe- 
real fare.  The  indefinite  will  be  succeeded  by  other  and  other 
shapes  of  that  infinitude  which  eye  hath  not  seen,  nor  ear 
heard,  neither  hath  it  entered  into  the  heart  of  man  to  con- 
ceive. And,  however  perfect  our  future  systems  may  be, 
there  will  always  appear  along  their  outlines  a  little  mist,  to 
testify  that  other  fields  and  still  grander  generalisations  lie 
within  and  beyond  it. 

Our  space  is  now  nearly  exhausted,  otherwise  we  had  some- 
thing more  to  say  about  these  lectures  and  their  author.  The 
faults  we  have  had  occasion  to  mention,  and  others  we  might 
name,  have  sprung  from  no  defect  of  capacity  or  taste,  but 
partly  from  the  accident  of  his  local  habitation,  partly  from 
the  generous  kindliness  of  his  heart — a  noble  fault,  and  prin- 
cipally from  the  false  position  he  and  all  are  compelled  to 
assume,  who  enter  on  that  grand  arena  of  mutual  deception 
and  graceful  imposture  called  the  lecture-room.  Having  felt 
long  ago,  by  experience  and  by  observation,  what  grave  lies 
lectures  generally  are,  what  poor  creatures  even  men  of  genius 
and  high  talents  often  become  ere  they  can  succeed  in  lecturing, 
and  how  we  yet  want  a  name  that  can  adequately  discriminate 
or  vividly  describe  the  personage  who  feels  himself  at  home  on 
a  lecture  platform,  we  were  abundantly  prepared,  by  the  words 
"  six  lectures,"  to  expect  a  certain  quantity  of  clap-trap,  and 
are  delighted  to  find  that  in  the  book  there  is  so  little.  We 
rejoice  to  see,  by  the  way,  from  a  recent  glance  at  that  reper- 
tory of  wit  and  wisdom — Boswell's  "Johnson" — that  old  Sam- 
uel entertained  the  same  opinion  with  us  of  the  inutility  of 
lectures,  and  their  inferiority  to  books  as  a  means  of  popular 
education ;  and  that,  too,  many  years  ere  they  had  become  the- 
standing  article  of  disgust  and  necessary  nuisance  which  thej 
seem  now  to  be. 


216  MODERN    CRITICS. 


But,  instead  of  dwelling  on  Delta's  faults,  or  quoting  any 
of  the  eloquent  and  beautiful  passages  in  which  his  lectures 
abound,  we  close  by  calling  on  our  readers  to  peruse  for  them- 
selves. His  book  is  not  only  worthy  of  his  reputation,  but  is 
really  one  of  the  heartiest,  sincerest,  and  most  delightful 
works  of  criticism  we  have  read  for  many  a  long  year. 


We  almost  tremble  now  to  begin  a  criticism  on  any  ad- 
vanced and  long-known  author.  While  we  were  writing  a 
recent  paper  on  Joanna  Baillie,  the  news  arrived  of  her  death. 
While  expecting  the  proof  of  the  above  article  on  "  Delta/' 
the  melancholy  tidings  of  his  sudden  decease  reached  us. 
Shall  we  say,  in  the  language  of  Lalla  Rookh, 

"  I  never  rear'd  a  fair  gazelle, 

To  glad  me  with  her  soft  black  eye, 
But  when  it  came  to  know  me  well, 
And  love  me,  it  was  sure  to  die?" 

About  two  months  ago,  the  lamented  dead  opened  up  a 
communication  with  us,  which  promised  to  ripen  into  a  long 
and  friendly  correspondence.  Dis  aliter  visum  est.  Delta 
the  Delightful  is  no  more.  On  a  visit  in  search  of  health,  he 
reached  Dumfries,  a  town  dear  to  him  on  many  accounts,  and 
principally  because  there  sojourned  a  kindred  spirit — Thomas 
Aird — one  of  his  oldest  and  fastest  friends.  On  the  evening 
of  Thursday,  the  3d  of  July,  as  the  amiable  and  gifted  twain 
were  walking  along  the  banks  of  the  Nith,  Delta  was  suddenly 
seized  with  a  renewal  of  his  complaint— rpcritonitis — a  pecu- 
liar kind  of  inflammation,  and  it  was  with  great  difficulty  that 
his  friend  could  help  him  home  to  his  hotel.  There,  fortu- 
nately, were  his  wife  and  one  of  his  children.  He  was  put 
immediately  to  bed,  arid  every  remedy  that  could  promise 
relief  was  adopted.  On  Friday  he  rallied  somewhat.  Dr. 
Christisou  was  summoned  from  Edinburgh,  and  came,  accom- 
panied by  the  rest  of  Delta's  family.  On  Saturday  he  grew 
worse,  and  early  on  Sunday  morning  he  expired,  surrounded 
by  his  dear  family,  and  by  two  of  his  old  friends,  one  of  the 


DELTA.  217 

Messrs.  Blackwood  and  Mr.  Aird.  On  Thursday  the  llth, 
he  was  buried  in  Musselburgh,  where  he  had  long  officiated  as 
a  physician,  universally  respected  and  beloved.  He  was  only 
fifty-three.  For  nearly  thirty-three  years  he  had  been  a  pop- 
ular contributor  to  "  Blackwood's  Magazine."  His  principal 
literary  works  are,  "  A  Legend  of  Genevieve,  with  other 
Poems"  (which  includes  the  best  of  his  poetical  contributions 
to  the  magazines  and  annuals),  "  Mansie  Wauch,"  and  the 
"  Sketches  of  Poetical  Literature,"  above  criticised.  He  pub- 
lished, also,  several  medical  works  of  value,  as  well  as  edited 
the  works  of  Mrs.  Hemaus,  and  wrote  the  "  Life  of  John 
Gait,"  &c. 

We  have  spoken  briefly,  but  sincerely,  in  the  article,  of 
Delta's  intellectual  merits ;  it  remains  only  to  add,  that,  al- 
though we  never  met  him  in  private,  we  can  testify  with  per- 
fect certainty,  that  a  better  man,  or  a  lovelier  specimen  of  the 
literary  character,  did  not  exist :  he  had  many  of  its  merits, 
and  none  of  its  defects ;  he  used  literature  as  a  "  staff,  not  a 
crutch" — it  was  the  elegant  evening  pastime  of  one  vigorously 
occupied  through  the  day  in  the  work  of  soothing  human 
anguish,  and  going  about  doing  good.  Hence  he  preserved  to 
the  last  his  child-like  love  of  letters ;  hence  he  died  without 
a  single  enemy ;  hence  his  personal  friends — and  they  were 
the  dite  of  Scotland — admired  and  loved  him  with  emulous 
enthusiasm.  Peace  to  his  fine  and  holy  dust !  reposing  now 
near  that  of  the  fine  boy,  whose  premature  fate  he  has  sung  in 
his  "  Casa  Wappy" — one  of  the  truest  and  tenderest  little 
poems  in  the  language,  to  parallel  which,  indeed,  we  must  go 
back  to  Cowper  and  his  verses  on  his  Mother's  Picture.  In 
all  the  large  sanctuary  of  sorrow,  there  is  no  chamber  more 
sweetly  shadowed  than  that  in  which  the  dear  child  reposes, 
embalmed  in  the  double  odors  of  parental  affection  and  poetic 
genius. 

Note. — Since  this  paper  appeared,  Mr.  Aird  has  collected  Delta's 
poetry  into  two  volumes,  and  prefixed  to  them  a  Life,  which,  in  beauty 
of  language,  depth  of  feeling,  and  unity  of  artistic  execution,  has  sel- 
dom been  equalled. 


218  MODERN    CRITICS. 


NO.  IV.-THACKERAY.* 

WE  do  not  intend  to  dwell  in  this  paper  on  Thackeray's 
merits  and  defects  as  a  writer  of  fiction,  else  we  might  have 
steered  a  course  somewhat  different  from  that  of  other  critics  ; 
and  while  granting  his  great  powers  of  humour,  sarcasm,  and 
interesting  narrative,  his  rare  freedom  from  cant,  and  his  still 
rarer  freedom  from  that  tedious  twaddle  which  disfigures  the 
fictions  of  many  writers  of  the  present  day,  we  might  have 
questioned  his  true  insight  into,  and  conception  of,  Man,  de- 
plored his  general  want  of  spirituality,  laughed  over  his  abor- 
tive attempts — few  as  well  as  abortive — to  be  imaginative,  and 
wondered  with  a  great  admiration  at  the  longitude  of  the  ears 
of  those  critics  who  name  him  in  the  same  day  with  the  author 
of  "  Rienzi,"  the  "  Last  Days  of  Pompeii,"  the  "  Caxtons," 
and  "  Zanoni."  But  our  business  now  is  with  him  entirely  as 
a  critic,  and  his  only  work  at  present  on  our  table  is  his  se- 
ries of  lectures  on  the  English  Humorists  of  the  Eighteenth 
Century. 

We  may,  before  opening  our  battery  of  objections,  first 
premise,  that,  as  a  readable  book,  this  has  seldom  been  sur- 
passed. Whatever  quantity  of  summer-salmon,  hotch-potch, 
veal  pie,  and  asparagus  you  may  have  been  discussing,  and 
however  dreary  you  may  feel  after  your  dinner,  Thackeray's 
amusing  anecdotes  and  conversational  style  will  keep  you 
awake.  Next  to  Macaulay  and  Hazlitt,  he  is  the  most  enter- 
taining of  critics.  You  read  his  lectures  with  quite  as  much 
gusto  as  you  do  "  Pendennis,"  and  with  infinitely  more  than  you 
do  such  dull  mimicry  of  the  past  as  is  to  be  found  in  "  Esmond." 
Clever,  too,  of  course,  sagacious  often,  and  sometimes  power- 
ful, are  his  criticisms,  and  a  geniality  not  frequent  in  his  fic- 
tions, is  often  here.  Sympathy  with  his  subject  is  also  a 
quality  he  possesses  and  parades ;  indeed,  he  appears  as  one 
born  out  of  his  proper  time,  and  seems,  occasionally,  to  sigh 

*  Thackeray's  English  Humorists  of  the  Eighteenth  Centuiy.  Lon- 
don: Smith  &  Elder,  Cornhill. 


THACKERAY.  219 


for  the  age  of  big-wigs,  bagnios,  and  sponging  .houses.  Such 
are,  we  think,  the  main  merits  of  this  very  popular  volume. 
We  come  now  to  state  its  defects,  and  to  contest  a  few  of  its 
opinions. 

In  the  first  place,  Mr.  Thackeray  errs  grievously  in  the  title 
of  his  volume.  That  professes  to  include  solely  the  English 
Humorists ;  and  yet  we  find  in  it  the  names  of  Congreve  and 
Pope,  neither  of  whose  plays  nor  poems,  with  all  their  bril- 
liant wit,  possessed  a  particle  of  humor  ;  and  of  Steele,  whose 
absurdities  have  indeed  made  him  the  "  cause  of  humor"  in 
others,  and  whose  pathos  is  sometimes  very  fine,  but  whose 
attempts,  whether  at  humor  or  wit,  are  in  general  lamentably 
poor.  Had  Mr.  Thackeray  written  a  book  on  the  "  Humor- 
ists" of  the  seventeenth  century,  he  would  have  inserted  a 
chapter  on  "  Butler  and  Milton;"  Butler,  for  the  mere  wit  of 
Hudibras,  and  Milton,  for  the  puns  and  quibbles  of  the  rebel 
augels  ! 

Secondly,  Mr.  Thackeray  much  over-estimates  the  size  and 
splendor  of  the  galaxy  he  has  undertaken  to  describe.  Again, 
and  again  he  speaks  of  the  wits  of  Queen  Anne  as  incompar- 
ably the  brightest  that  ever  shone  in  Britain.  We  dare  not 
countersign  these  statements,  so  long  as  we  remember  the 
Elizabethan  period,  and  the  names  of  Shakspeare,  Sidney, 
Spenser,  and  Bacon ;  or  the  era  of  the  two  last  Georges,  and 
the  names  of  Scott,  Byron,  Coleridge,  and  Wordsworth.  lu 
none  of  the  worthies  Thackeray  has  described,  do  we  find  the 
element  of  true  greatness.  Swift  was  wondrously  strong,  but 
had  no  moral  grandeur — like  the  fearful  hybrids  described  iu 
the  Revelation,  his  power  was  in  his  tail,  and  with  it  he  dealt 
out  pain,  like  the  torment  of  a  scorpion  when  he  striketh  a 
man.  Pope  had  rarest  polish  and  point,  but  is  seldom  power- 
ful, and  never  profound.  Steele,  Congreve,  Prior,  and  Gay, 
were  all  dii  minorum  gentium.  Addison,  next  to  Swift,  was 
incomparably  the  truest  and  most  natural  genius  of  his  age ; 
and  yet  does  not  appertain  to  the  "  first  three."  Thackeray 
quotes  Pope  as  thinking  Bolingbroke  so  superior  to  all  other 
men,  that  when  he  saw  a  comet  he  thought  it  was  a  coach 
come  for  him.  And  well  he  might,  if,  as  many  used  to  be- 
lieve, comets  be  launched  from,  and  return  to  that  "  Other 
Place."  But,  a»s  to  his  reputed  powers,  we  recur  to  Lamb's 


220  MODERN    CRITICS. 


inexorable  principle—*'  Print  settles  all ;"  and  renew  tie 
question  Burke  asked  sixty  years  ago,  "  Who  now  reads  Bo- 
lingbroke — who  ever  read  him  through  ?"  To  him,  as  to  all 
deniers,  more  intellectual  power  than  he  deserves  has  been 
conceded.  Had  the  "  comet  "  carried  away  his  works,  it 
would  have  cost  the  world  nothing,  although  Mallett  (the 
"  beggarly  Scotchman  "  who  "  drew  the  trigger"  of  the  blun- 
derbuss of  blasphemy)  a  great  deal.  That  one  man,  Edmund 
Burke,  might  have  been  split  up  into  a  hundred  Boliugbrokes  ; 
and  yet  no  one  was  ever  heard  crying  out  for  "  A  comet !"  "  a 
comet !"  at  his  exit. 

Thirdly,  we  quarrel  with  Thackeray  for  the  manner  and 
style  in  which  he  has  chosen  to  issue  his  lecturing  lucubrations. 
We  do  not  know  what  others  may  think,  but  to  us  the  lec- 
tures, in  manner,  seem  elaborate  imitations  of  the  lectures  on 
"  Heroes  and  Hero-worship,"  by  Thomas  Carlyle.  Now,  the 
oddity  and  egotism  which  we  must  bear  in  Carlyle,  we  cannot 
bear  in  any  imitator — not  even  in  Thackeray.  They  have  a 
fade  and  false  air  in  him,  and  it  takes  all  his  talent  to  recon- 
cile us  to  them. 

Passing  to  the  individual  lectures,  we  are  inclined  to  rank 
Swift  as  the  best,  as  it  is  the  first,  of  the  series.  None  of 
Swift's  former  critics  have  so  admirably  represented  the  Irish- 
man's emasculated  hatred  of  man  and  woman — his  soundless 
misery — his  outer  crust  of  contempt,  in  vain  seeking  to  dis- 
guise the  workings  of  his  riven  and  tortured  conscience — his 
disgust  at  the  human  race  rushing  up  at  last,  as  if  on  demon 
wings,  into  a  denial  of  their  Maker  !  We  think  that,  as  moral 
monsters.  Swift,  and  that  Yankee-Yahoo,  Edgar  Poe,  must  be 
classed  together.  Neither  of  them  could  believe  that  a  race 
which  had  produced  them  had  any  link  relating  it  to  the  Di- 
vine. They,saw  all  things  and  beings  in  the  vast  black  sha- 
dow cast  by  themselves. 

Thackeray  knows  how  easy,  cheap,  and  worthless  a  feeling 
toward  a  man  like  Swift  MERE  anger  were.  He  has  followed, 
therefore,  in  general,  the  milder  and  surer  track  of  pity.  He 
mourns  over,  as  well  as  blames,  the  maimed  and  blinded  Cy- 
clops, that  "  most  miserable  of  all  human  beings."  He  does 
not  know,  or  at  least  he  tries  not  to  reveal,  the  secret  of  his 
wretchedness,  although  that,  so  far  as  physical  causes  are  con- 


THACKERAY. 


cerned,  seems  to  us  as  transparent  in  the  case  of  Swift  a  of 
Pope.  We  confess  to  a  greater  admiration  for  Swift  than  <br 
Pope.  Swift  was  infinitely  more  a  natural  product  than  Pone  ; 
who,  but  for  intense  culture,  would  never  have  reached  emi- 
nence at  all.  If  Pope  had  more  polish,  Swift,  to  use  De 
Quincey's  language,  was  a  "  demon  of  power."  Pope  used 
poisoned  Lilliputian  arrows,  Swift  directed  at  man  and  God 
a  shaft  like  that  described  by  old  Chapman,  which  was 

"  Shot  at  the  sun  by  angry  Hercules, 

And  into  shivers  by  the  thunder  broken." 

Pope  did  wondrously  with  his  sparkling  couplets ;  Swift  ef- 
fected greater  results  with  his  careless,  rambling  rhymes,  which 
seemed  mere  child's  play,  but  which  were  the  sport  of  a  Titan, 
and  often  of  the  madman  in  Scripture,  "  casting  firebrand?, 
arrows,  and  death."  Pope's  hatred  to  man  seems  small,  self- 
ish spite,  compared  to  that  gigantic  horror  and  disgust  at  his 
species  which  pursued  Swift  all  his  life.  Pope,  in  a  thin, 
cracked  voice,  squeaks  out  his  irritated  feelings;  Swift  howls 
them  forth  to  earth  and  heaven.  Pope  was  essentially  and 
exquisitely  small ;  his  love  is  an  intense  burning  drop ;  the 
dance  of  his  fancy  reminds  you  of  that  led  by  angels  on  the 
point  of  a  needle  ;  when  in  the  convivial  vein  he  tipples,  it  is 
in  thimblefuls ;  his  sarcastic  sting  is  very  sharp  and  small, 
and  he  takes  care  never  to  spill  an  infinitesimal  of  the  venom. 
Like  Tom  Moore  after  him,  he  is  a  poetic  Homoeopath,  and, 
whether  he  try  to  kill  you  with  laughter  or  to  cure  you  by 
sense,  he  must  deal  in  minute  and  intensely  concentrated  doses. 
When  he  invents,  as  in  the  "  Rape  of  the  Lock,"  it  is  a  minute 
machinery  of  Sylphs  and  Gnomes ;  when  he  attacks,  it  is  the 
dynasty  of  the  "Dunces,"  that  "  small  infantry ;"  when  he 
examines  works  of  art,  it  is  through  a  microscope ;  when  he 
describes  love,  it  is  that  tiny  tortured  mimicry  of  the  great 
passion,  exhibited  by  such  nauseous  beings  as  Eloisa  and  Abe- 
lard  ;  and  when  he  translates,  he  hangs  cymbals  on  the  stal- 
wart arms  of  old  Homer,  and  turns  his  majestic  pace  into  a 
jingle  of  tinkling  sound.  Swift,  on  the  other  hand,  was,  if 
not  truly  great,  immensely  large;  and  even  in  his  most  care- 
less verses  you  see  a  lar^te  black  purpose — that,  namely,  of  a 


222  MODERN    CRITICS. 


wholesale  libeller,  who,  as  he  said  himself,  loved  many  men 
but  hated  man — looming  through ;  and  some  of  his  veriest 
trifles  make  you  tremble. 

Thackeray,  at  page  15,  says,  "Swift's  heart  was  English, 
and  in  England,  his  habits  English,  his  logic  eminently  Eng- 
lish ;  his  statement  is  elaborately  simple  ;  he  shuns  tropes  and 
metaphors;  he  has  no  profuse  imagery."  Here  we  deem 
Thackeray  mistaken.  Swift  had  an  exceedingly  fertile  fancy, 
and  there  are  more  memorable  sentences,  each  carrying  an 
image  from  his  pen,  floating  through  literature,  than  from  any 
other  save  Shakspeare's.  We  do  not  say  that  his  imagery  is 
always,  or  very  often,  poetical,  but  it  is  always  abundant, 
picturesque,  pointed,  and  new.  Thackeray  has  been  deceived 
by  Swift's  coldness  of  manner.  He  does  not  shout  "  Eureka" 
over  every  whole  truth  or  half  truth  he  sees.  His  figures  are 
all  chased  in  lead.  This  at  least  is  true  of  his  later  manner, 
except  when  his  fury  at  man,  as  in  the  fourth  part  of  "  Gulli- 
ver," is  fully  roused,  and  when,  as  Thackeray  well  says,  "  it 
is  yahoo  language  ;  a  monster  gibbering  shrieks,  and  gnashing 
imprecations  against  mankind,  tearing  down  all  shreds  of  mo- 
desty, past  all  sense  of  manliness  and  shame ;  filthy  in  word, 
filthy  in  thought — furious,  raging,  obscene." 

But  in  his  earlier  writings  there  is  far  more  fire  of  style,  as 
well  as  freshness  of  thought,  and  richness  of  imagery.  Wit- 
ness the  "  Tale  of  a  Tub."  Well  might  he  say  in  his  old  age, 
"  Good  God,  what  a  genius  I  had  when  I  wrote  that  book  1" 
It  is  certainly  his  most  astonishing  production.  You  see  a 
"  virgin  mind  crumbling  down  with  its  own  riches."  It  is  the 
wildest,  wittiest,  wickedest,  wealthiest  book  of  its  size  iu  Brit- 
ish literature.  Talk  of  Swift  having  no  "  profusion  of  figure  !" 
What  would  Mr.  Thackeray  want  more  than  he  gets  in  the 
following  paragraph  : — "  The  most  accomplished  way  of  using 
books  at  present  is  twofold — either,  first,  to  serve  them  as 
some  men  do  lords — learn  their  titles  exactly,  and  then  brag 
of  their  acquaintance ;  or,  secondly  (which  is  indeed  the 
choicer,  the  profounder,  and  the  politer  method,)  to  get  a 
thorough  insight  into  the  index  by  which  the  whole  book  is 
governed  and  turned,  as  fishes  are,  by  the  tail.  For  to  enter 
the  palace  of  learning  at  the  great  gate,  requires  an  expense 
of  time  and  forms  ;  therefore,  men  of  much  haste  and  iittlo 


THACKERAY.  223 


ceremony  are  content  to  get  in  by  the  back-door.  For  the 
arts  are  all  in  a  flying  march,  and  therefore  more  easily  sub- 
dued by  attacking  them  in  the  rear.  Thus  physicians  discover 
the  state  of  the  whole  body,  by  consulting  only  what  conies 
from  behind.  Thus  men  catch  knowledge,  by  throwing  their 
wit  on  the  posteriors  of  a  book,  as  boys  do  sparrows,  by  fling- 
ing salt  on  their  tails.  Thus  human  life  is  best  understood  by 
the  wise  man's  rule  of  regarding  the  end.  Thus  are  the  sci- 
ences found,  like  Hercules's  oxen,  by  tracing  them  backwards. 
Thus  are  old  sciences  unravelled,  like  old  stockings,  by  be- 
ginning at  the  foot."  We  do  not  vouch  for  the  elegance  of  all 
these  figures ;  but,  in  fertility,  the  passage  equals  Jeremy 
Taylor  or  Shakspeare  ;  and  there  are  a  hundred  similar  in  the 
"  Tale  of  a  Tub." 

That  "  Swift  was  a  pious  and  reverent  spirit,"  while  in  the 
very  next  paragraph  we  are  told  that  he  had  put  his  "  scepti- 
cism and  apostacy  out  to  hire,"  is  rather  a  strange  assertion. 
How  can  one  who  revels  in  filth  and  downright  beastliness — 
whose  miscellanies  in  verse  are  a  disgrace  to  human  nature — 
who  flings  ordure  on  that  Schekinah  of  man's  body,  which 
God's  Son  entered  and  purified — who  ran  through  the  world 
shrieking  that  "  man  is  utterly  wicked,  desperate,  and  imbe- 
cile"— who  ruined  the  happiness  of  three  females — who  be- 
came, in  his  own  words,  little  else  than  "  a  poisoned  rat  in  a 
hole" — and  who  mocked  and  gibbered  at  the  profounder  mys- 
teries of  the  Christian  religion,  be  called  "  pious  or  reverent  ?" 
We  are  not  the  least  charitable  of  critics ;  and  we  feel  deep 
and  solemn  sorrow  over  the  mountain  of  ghastly  ruin  which 
Swift  at  last  became  :  but  we  dare  not  apply  to  him  epithets 
which  would  fit  a  Jack  Wilkes,  a  Mirabeau,  or  a  Tom  Paine, 
as  well  as  the  miserable  Dean  of  St.  Patrick's.  More  fitly  and 
finely  does  Thackeray  afterwards  ask,  "  What  had  this  man 
done  ?  what  secret  remorse  was  rankling  at  his  heart  ?  what 
fever  was  boiling  in  him,  that  he  should  see  all  the  world 
bloodshot  ?  We  view  the  world  with  our  own  eyes  each  of 
us,  and  we  make  from  within  us  the  world  that  we  see.  A 
weary  heart  gets  no  gladness  out  of  sunshine  ;  a  selfish  man 
is  sceptical  about  friendship,  as  a  man  with  no  ear  doesn't 
care  for  music.  A  frightful  self-consciousness  it  must  have 
been  which  looked  on  mankind  so  darkly  through  those  eyes." 


224  MODERN    CRITICS. 


All  this  sketch  of  Swift,  indeed,  with  the  exceptior  of  the 
statements  we  have  exposed  above,  a  few  Carlylistic  abrupt- 
nesses of  style,  such  as  "  silence  and  utter  night  closed  over 
him — an  immense  genius,  an  awful  downfal  and  ruin,"  &c.,  is 
written  with  great  pathos  and  energy ;  and  if  not  so  elaborate 
as  Jeffrey's  celebrated  paper,  breathes,  we  think,  a  finer  and 
more  humane  spirit. 

His  treatment  of  Congreve  does  not  call  for  special  remark, 
unless  this,  that  we  do  not  think  him  sufficiently  severe  on  the 
immorality  of  that  writer's  plays.  We  pause  with  greater 
interest  over  the  venerable  name  of  Joseph  Addison.  There 
are  many  writers,  as  we  have  hinted  before,  who  have  taught 
us  more,  and  whom  we  admire  more,  than  Addison — many 
subtler,  stronger,  more  complete,  and  profound  ;  but  there  is 
scarce  one,  except  John  Bunyan,  whom  we  love  so  well.  He 
does  not  suggest  much  ;  but  how  h«  soothes  !  How  soft  and 
rich  the  everlasting  April  of  his  style  !  By  what  green  pas- 
tures and  still  waters  does  he  lead  us !  What  a  tremble 
there  is  in  his  beautiful  sentences,  like  that  of  a  twilight  wave 
just  touched  by  the  west  wind's  balmy  breath !  How  ho 
stammers  out  his  mild  sublimities ;  and  how  much  does  his 
stammer,  like  a  beautiful  child's,  add  to  their  effect !  His 
piety,  so  sweet  and  shepherd-like ;  his  kindness,  so  unaffected  ; 
his  mannerism,  so  agreeable;  his  humor,  so  delicate,  so  sly, 
so  harmless  !  What  a  contrast  in  spirit  to  Swift  and  Pope, 
who  alone  of  his  contemporaries  could  vie  with  him  in  popu- 
larity or  power  !  We  know  no  better  way  of  rounding  off  a 
week's  intellectual  work,  than  amid  the  closing  shadows  of  the 
Saturday  evening  to  lift  up  Addison's  serious  papers,  and  to 
allow  their  honey  to  distil  slowly  upon  our  souls.  Burke 
spent  some  of  the  last  hours  of  his  life  in  listening  to  Addi- 
son's papers  on  the  Immortality  of  the  Soul. 

Thackeray  by  one  word  (a  word  we  had  applied  to  Addison 
years  ere  we  had  ever  read  a  line  of  the  author  of  "  Vanity 
Fair")*  gives  the  character  of  all  that  series  of  periodical  lit- 
erature, which  included  the  "  Tattler,"  the  "  Spectator,"  the 
"  Guardian,"  the  "  Freeholder,"  &c. — he  calls  it  "  prattle." 
Both  Steele  and  Addison  were  fine  prattlers ;  only  the  prattle 

*  See  "  Second  Gallery" — article  "  Professor  Nichul  " 


THACKERAY.  225 


of  Addison  was  directed  to  higher  subjects.  Steele  prattled, 
often  tattled  rather,  about  politics,  and  the  modes  of  the  day, 
and  the  fair  sex.  Addison  prattled  about  the  stars,  and  the 
soul,  and  the  glorious  dreams  of  the  Arabian  heaven ;  and  it 
seemed  a  divine  prattle,  like  that  of  a  "  child-angel."  A  cer- 
tain simple  infantine  ease  and  grace,  which  it  were  vain  now 
to  seek  to  reproduce,  distinguished  the  language  of  both.  We 
have  mentioned  the  "  Freeholder."  This  series,  although  so 
strongly  recommended  by  Johnson,  is  now,  we  fear,  but  very 
little  read.  We  only  met  with  it  a  year  or  two  since ;  but  we 
can  assure  our  readers  that  some  of  the  most  delectable  tid- 
bits of  Addison  are  therein  contained.  There  is  a  Tory  fox- 
hunter  still  riding  along  there,  whom  we  advise  you  to  make 
up  to,  if  you  would  enjoy  one  of  the  richest  treats  of  humor ; 
and  there  is  a  Jacobite  army  still  on  its  way  to  Preston,  the 
only  danger  connected  with  approaching  which  is,  lest  it  kill 
you  with  laughter. 

Well  did  Addison  call  himself  the  "  Spectator."  He  could 
not  speak,  but  only  prattle  in  a  delightful  way.  But  he  could 
look  at  all  objects  and  persons,  above,  below,  or  around  him, 
with  a  keen  and  quiet,  a  mild  and  most  observant  eye.  Had 
he  been  as  profound  as  he  was  wide — as  eloquent  and  passion- 
ate as  he  was  true,  delicate,  and  refined,  he  had  been  our 
finest  prose  writer.  We  cordially  coincide  with  our  author's 
last  paragraph : — "  When  he  turns  to  heaven,  a  Sabbath  comes 
over  that  man's  mind,  and  his  face  lights  up  from  it  with  a 
glory  of  thanks  and  prayer.  His  sense  of  religion  stirs  through 
his  whole  being.  In  the  fields,  in  the  town ;  looking  at  the 
birds  in  the  trees,  at  the  children  in  the  streets ;  in  the  morn- 
ing or  in  the  moonlight ;  over  his  books  in  his  own  room ;  in  a 
happy  party — good-will  and  peace  to  God's  creatures,  and  love 
and  awe  of  Him  who  made  them,  fill  his  pure  heart,  and  shine 
from  his  kind  face.  If  Swift's  life  was  the  most  wretched,  I 
think  Addison's  was  one  of  the  most  enviable.  A  life  pros- 
perous and  beautiful — a  calm  death — an  immense  fame,  and 
affection  afterwards  for  his  happy  and  spotless  name." 

Who  has  not  heard  of  Sir  Kichard  Steele  ?  Wordsworth 
says  of  one  of  his  characters — 

"  She  was  known  to  every  star, 
And  everv  wind  that  blows." 


226  MODERN    CRITICS. 


Poor  Dick  was  known  to  every  sponging-house,  and  to  every 
bailiff  that,  blowing  in  pursuit,  walked  the  London  streets. 
A  fine-hearted,  warm-blooded  character,  without  an  atom  of 
prudence,  self-control,  reticence,  or  forethought — quite  as 
destitute  of  malice  and  envy ;  perpetually  sinning,  and  per- 
petually repenting;  never  positively  irreligious,  even  when 
drunk,  and  often  excessively  pious  when  recovering  sobriety — 
Steele  reeled  his  way  through  life,  and  died  with  the  reputa- 
tion of  having  been  an  orthodox  Christian,  and  a  habitual 
drunkard ;  the  most  faithless  and  most  affectionate  of  hus- 
bands ;  a  brave  soldier,  and  an  arrant  fool ;  a  violent  politi- 
cian, and  the  best  natured  of  men ;  a  writer  extremely  lively, 
for  this,  among  other  reasons,  that  he  wrote  generally  on 
his  legs,  flying,  or  meditating  flight,  from  his  creditors,  and 
who  embodied  in  himself  the  titles  of  his  three  principal  pro- 
ductions— the  "  Christian  Hero,"  the  "  Tender  Husband," 
and  the  "  Tattler;"  being  a  Christian  hero  in  intention — one 
of  those  intentions  with  which  a  certain  place  is  paved;  a 
"  tender  husband,"  if  not  a  true  one,  in  his  conduct  to  his  two 
ladies ;  and  a  "  tattler"  to  all  persons,  in  all  circumstances, 
and  at  all  times.  But  besides — and  it  is  this  which  has  made 
him  immortal,  and  which  he  himself  valued  more  than  all  per- 
sonal fame — he  was  the  friend  and  coadjutor  of  Addison.  He 
called  him  in  early  to  his  aid,  and  found  himself,  he  said, 
ruined  by  his  ally,  as  the  Britons  were  when  they  sought  the 
assistance  of  the  Saxons,  a  stronger  power.  It  is  utterly 
ridiculous,  as  Hazlitt  and  Hunt  were  wont,  to  prefer  or  equal 
Steele's  papers  to  Addison's.  They  are  more  slipshod,  indeed, 
and  conversational ;  they  reflect  more  literally  the  outer  cur- 
rent of  the  then  London  life ;  they  contain  some  very  tender 
and  some  very  picturesque  touches,  which  seem  sometimes 
like  the  lucky  chance  of  a  painter  who  drops  or  dashes  his 
brush  upon  the  canvas,  and  produces  striking  effects ;  but  in 
matter,  in  polish,  in  delicacy  and  depth  of  humor,  in  beautiful 
fancy,  or  in  graceful  language,  they  can  only  be  placed  beside 
Addison's  by  the  criticism  of  caprice,  or  by  the  power  of  pre- 
judice. Steele  has  no  artistic  merits.  His  pathos  is  that  of 
a  fine  fellow,  maudlin  after  some  great  loss  or  reverse.  His 
glee,  as  Thackeray  well  says,  is  that  of  a  "  box  full  of  child- 
ren at  a  pantomime."  He  has  all  Goldsmith's  spirits  and 


THACKERAY.  227 


absurdities,  without  a  tithe  of  his  genius.  His  best  sobriquet 
had  been  "  Sir  Richard,  or  Reginald  Rattle."  And  how  poor 
and  needless  in  his  critic  to  say,  "  Steele  was  not  one  of  those 
lonely  ones  of  the  earth  whose  greatness  obliged  them  to  be 
solitary."  He  might  as  well  have  gravely  assured  us,  that 
Swift  was  not  George  Herbert;  nor  Rochester,  Milton;  nor 
Goldsmith,  Burke;  nor  the  author  of  the  "Book  of  Snobs," 
the  writer  of  the  "  Natural  History  of  Enthusiasm."  To- 
wards the  close  of  the  chapter,  however,  Thackeray  has  an 
admirable  antithetical  account  of  theinanner  in  which  Steele, 
Addison,  and  Swift  have  dealt  with  the  one  tremendous  sub- 
ject of  death  :  Steele  looking  up  to  it  with  the  awestruck  face 
of  a  child — Addison  looking  down  on  it  with  a  quiet,  medita- 
tive, half  humorous  eye — and  Swift  stamping  on  the  tomb- 
stone, and  crying,  "Fools,  do  you  know  anything  of  this 
mystery .?" 

In  his  fourth  lecture,  after  trifling  very  pleasantly  with  two 
ingenious  triflers — Prior  and  Gay — he  brings  forward  his 
whole  strength  to  prove  Pope  the  greatest  literary  artist  that 
England  has  seen,  "  besides  being  the  highest  among  wits 
and  humorists  with  whom  we  have  to  rank  him,"  and  the 
"  highest  among  the  poets,"  we  presume  of  that  period  of  po- 
etry. And  yet,  ere  he  closes,  he  goes  farther  than  this,  and 
predicates  of  the  passage  which  closes  the  "  Dunciad,"  that  it 
is  the  most  "  wonderful  flight  "  of  poetry,  the  "  greatest  height 
of  the  sublime  art."  He  compares  his  early  poems,  such  as 
the  Pastorals,  Windsor  Forest,  and  the  "  Essay  on  Criticism," 
to  the  first  victories  of  Napoleon  ! 

Pope  has,  to  do  him  full  justice,  risen  sometimes  into  the 
moral  sublime ;  but  to  that  highest  form  of  writing,  common 
in  our  great  poets,  which  combines  moral  and  material  sublim- 
ity into  one  splendid  yet  terrible  whole,  in  which  grand  ima- 
ges from  nature  flock  around,  and  fall  down  before  and  com- 
bine to  illustrate  some  big  emotion  of  the  soul  or  heart,  he  has 
never  attained.  The  lines  our  author  praises  so  highly  are, 
in  our  judgment,  a  mere  hubbub  of  words,  composed  in  equal 
proportions  of  mixed  metaphors,  bombast,  and  absolute  non- 
sense. Yet  perhaps  our  readers  may  prefer  Thackeray's  esti- 
mate conveyed  in  the  following  language  : — 

"  It  is  the  brightest  ardor,   the  loftiest  assertion  of  truth, 


228  MODERN     CRITICS. 


the  most  generous  wisdom,  illustrated  by  the  noblest  poetic 
figure,  and  spoken  in  words  the  aptest,  grandest,  and  most 
harmonious.  It  is  heroic  courage  speaking — a  splendid  de- 
claration of  righteous  wrath ;  the  gauge  flung  down — the  silver 
trumpet  ringing  defiance ;  it  is  Truth  the  champion — it  is  a 
wonderful  single  combat !"  Had  Pope  been  alive,  it  would 
have  taken  all  the  counterweight,  we  fear,  of  "  Pendennis" 
and  "  Vanity  Fair,"  to  have  prevented  him  adding  a  codicil  to 
the  "  Dunciad,"  and  inserting  in  it  the  name  of  his  most  ad- 
miring critic. 

The  fifth  lecture  opens  pleasingly  on  a  subject  ever  fresh 
and  delightful,  at  least  to  us — Hogarth,  the  greatest  moral 
painter  of  the  world.  Thackeray,  so  far  as  he  goes,  discour- 
ses well  on  this  great  canvas-poet.  We  are  no  connoisseurs 
of  the  "  serene  and  silent  art ;"  nay,  are  apt  to  look  with  con- 
siderable contempt  upon  the  jargon  of  painters,  the  most  dis- 
gusting jargon  in  all  the  broad  realms  of  pedantry.  Our 
only  question  about  paintings  is,  how  much  meaning  and  mind 
do  they  contain  ?  how  high  do  they  prove  the  tide  of  soul  to 
have  risen  in  the  artist  ?  and  how  high  do  they  raise  it  in  us  ? 
And  looking  at  Hogarth  in  this  light,  we  dare  pronounce  him, 
with  the  exception  of  Michael  Angelo  and  Raphael,  the  great- 
est painter  that  ever  lived.  Nay,  perhaps  we  should  not  have 
wade  these  exceptions ;  for,  if  Michael  Angelo  wrought  on 
more  collossal  materials,  aimed  at  higher  things,  and  reached 
a  savage  grandeur  unknown  to  the  Englishman;  if  Raphael 
was  more  graceful,  holier  in  his  purpose,  more  beautiful  in  his 
conceptions,  and  more  delicate  in  his  execution,  Hogarth's 
power  was  magnified  by  the  very  coarseness  of  the  materials 
he  used,  and  by  the  very  commonplace  of  the  objects  he  paint- 
ed. The  gift  of  the  first  two  resembled  wealth ;  that  of  the 
third  was  alchemy.  The  two  first  went  out,  so  to  speak,  to 
Australia,  and  collected  its  ore  lying  thick  as  morning  dew  ; 
the  third  staid  at  home,  and  turned  everything  he  saw  into 
gold.  Most  of  the  peculiarly  Shakspearian  qualities  were 
Hogarth's — wide  sympathy,  command  of  tears  and  laughter, 
subtle  perception  of  analogies,  unconscious  power  of  bending 
all  things  into  a  common  centre,  and  causing  them  to  promote 
a  common  artistic  object,  so  that  a  very  fly  murmuring  in  a 
room  where  a  great  tragedy  is  concocting  or  taking  place,  be- 


THACKERAY.  229 


comes  an  important  element  in  the  interest,  and  all  "  asides," 
however  insignificant  apparently,  serve  to  point  the  moral,  or 
to  adorn  the  tale;  and  the  irresistible  introduction  of  beauty 
into  the  heart  of  terror,  and  along  the  side  of  the  loathsome 
and  the  despicable,  like  the  light  that  will  shine  in  dark  rooms 
after  every  candle  has  been  put  out,  and  every  beam  of  day 
has  been  excluded — beauty,  which,  in  Shakspeare,  sows  flow- 
ers upon  the  dreary  crags  of  agony ;  and  in  Hogarth  (a  thing 
which  Coleridge  notices),  brings  in  fine  female  faces  into  many 
of  the  coarsest,  and  many  of  the  darkest  of  his  scenes,  like 
embodied  images  of  Eternal  Love  looking  down  upon  sorrow, 
and  sin,  and  rudeness,  and  vice,  and  silently  whispering,  "  I 
bide  my  time."  Even  his  Cock-Pit,  his  Gin  Street,  his  Beer 
Lane,  his  Marriage  a  La  Mode,  his  Rake's  Progress,  are  all 
haunted  by  the  heavenly  face  of  angelic  woman ;  just  as  in 
Shakspeare,  Cordelia  bends  over  the  dying  Lear,  Ophelia  mur- 
murs her  tender  sympathy  beside  the  wild  speeches  of  the  mel- 
ancholy Hamlet,  Miranda  uplifts  her  sweet  face  amid  the 
"  Tempest,"  and  Perdita,  like  a  sunbeam,  pierces  the  confused 
mistakes  and  miseries  of  the  •'  Winter's  Tale."  Even  more 
constantly  than  in  Shakspeare  does  this  image  of  female  love- 
liness pervade  the  prints  of  Hogarth ;  for  while  in  them  it  is 
rarely  absent,  Shakspeare  has  forgot  to  light  up  with  its  gen- 
tle ray  such  deep  Nights  of  suffering  and  controversy  as  "  Ti- 
mon"  and  ''  Macbeth." 

Following  Hazlitt,  Thackeray  dwells  lovingly  on  Hogarth's 
gusto,  his  rich  repetition  of  thought,  as  in  Marriage  a  La 
Mode,  where  "  the  Earl's  coronet  is  everywhere  :  on  his  foot- 
stool, on  which  reposes  one  gouty  toe  turned  out ;  on  the 
sconces  and  looking-glasses  ;  on  the  dogs ;  on  his  very  crutch- 
es ,-" — his  constant  moral  purpose ;  the  faithful  picture  his 
prints  form  of  the  age  of  the  first  Georges,  and  the  compari- 
son they  suggest  and  enable  us  to  substantiate  between  his 
and  our  own  time,  especially  between  the  London  of  1753  and 
the  London  of  1853.  With  the  higher  imaginative  qualities 
of  the  great  painter,  such  as  those  we  have  enumerated,  be  is 
not  so  familiar;  and  compared  to  the  papers  of  Lamb  and 
Hazlitt  on  the  subject,  his  may  be  said  to  be  such  a  sketch  as 
Hogarth  was  wont  to  execute  of  his  future  pictures  upon  his 
thumb  nail. 


xibO  MODERN    CRITICS. 

Smollett  succeeds — a  rough,  roaring,  ill-natured,  and  yet 
originally  kind-hearted  Scotchman  of  the  last  century,  with 
three  powers  in  extraordinary  development :  self-will,  humor, 
and  a  certain  strong  poetical  gift,  which  could  only  be,  and 
was  only  now  and  then,  stung  into  action.  To  see  his  self- 
will,  in  its  last  soured  and  savage  state,  let  us  consult  his 
"  Travels."  He  was  the  "  Smelfungus  "  of  Sterne,  who  tra- 
veled from  Dan  to  Beersheba,  and  found  all  barren.  We 
are  among  the  very  few  who  have  read  the  book.  It  is  a  suc- 
cession of  asthmatic  gasps  and  groans,  with  not  a  particle  of 
the  humor  of  "  Humphrey  Clinker."  Among  his  novels, 
"  Roderick  Random  "  is  the  most  popular,  "  Peregrine  Pickle  " 
the  filthiest,  "  Sir  Launcelot  Greaves"  the  silliest,  "Clinker" 
the  most  delightful,  and  "  Ferdinand  Fathom,"  in  parts,  the 
most  original  and  profound.  There  is  a  robber  scene  in  a  for- 
est, in  this  last  novel,  surpassed  by  nothing  in  Scott,  or  any- 
where else.  His  "Ode  to  Independence"  should  have  been 
written  by  Burns.  How  that  poet's  lips  must  have  watered 
as  he  repeated  the  lines, 

"  Lord  of  the  lion  heart  and  eagle  eye;" 

and  remembered  he  was  not  their  author  !  He  said  he  would 
have  given  ten  pounds  to  have  written  "  Donocht-head;"  he 
would  have  given  ten  times  ten,  if  he  had  had  them,  poor  fel- 
low !  to  have  written  the  "  Ode  to  Independence."  Thacke- 
ray, who  is  in  chase  of  Fielding,  finds  nothing  very  new  to 
say  of  Smollett,  and  ignores  his  most  peculiar  and  powerful 
works.  His  best  sentence  about  him  is,  that  he  went  to  Lon- 
don, "  armed  with  courage,  hunger,  and  keen  wits." 

To  Fielding  he  goes,  con  amore,  and  shows  him  as  "  he  is, 
not  robed  in  a  marble  toga,  and  draped  and  polished  in  a 
heroic  attitude,  but  with  inked  ruffles,  and  claret  stains  on  his 
tarnished  laced  coat,  and  on  his  manly  face  the  marks  of  good- 
fellowship,  cf  illness,  of  kindness,  and  of  care."  Fielding, 
sooth  to  say,  was,  even  for  that  age,  a  sad  scamp.  Steele  pro- 
bably lived  as  dissipated  a  life,  but  Steele  did  not  put  his  de- 
pravity in  circulation  by  printing  it  in  his  books.  When  men 
come  to  that,  it  is  a  fearful  symptom.  Paul  speaks  of  those 
who  not  only  do  ill  themselves,  but  have  pleasure  in  them  that 
do  it.  Such  is  the  case  witli  authors  who  print  their  obscen- 


THACKERAY.  231 


ities  or  blasphemies.  They  cannot  write  without  reproducing 
their  own  vices.  They  roll  them  as  a  sweet  morsel.  By  be- 
stowing them  on  ideal  characters,  they  multiply  their  own 
enjoyment  of  them.  Their  imagination  has  become  so  pollu- 
ted, that  it  overflows  on  all  their  pages.  They  sometimes  arc 
actuated,  it  is  to  be  feared,  by  a  worse  motive :  they  wish, 
namely,  to  make  others  as  wicked  and  miserable  as  them- 
selves. Bit  by  hydrophobia,  they  run  about  everywhere,  with 
lolling  tongues,  in  search  of  others  to  destroy.  We  do  not 
think  that  this  latter  was  Fielding's  motive.  He,  in  part 
from  depraved  taste,  and  in  part  from  carelessness,  simply 
transferred  his  own  character  to  his  novels.  Mr.  Thackeray 
seems  to  us  to  overrate  "  Tom  Jones  "  amazingly.  It  is  a 
piece  of  admirable  art,  but  composed  of  the  basest  materials, 
like  a  palace  built  of  dung.  "  Amelia  "  is  not  so  corrupt,  but 
it  is  often  coarse,  and,  as  a  whole,  very  poor  and  tedious. 
"  Joseph  Andrews  "  is  by  far  the  most  delightful  of  his  wri- 
tings. With  less  art  than  "  Tom  Jones,"  it  has  much  more 
genius.  Parson  Adams  is  confessedly  one  of  the  most  original 
and  pleasing  characters  in  fiction.  Goldsmith's  Vicar  of 
Wakefield,  Joseph  Cargill  in  "  St.  Ronan's  Well,"  are  both 
copied  from  him,  but  have  not  a  tithe  of  his  deep  simplicity 
and  delicious  bonJiommie.  We  predict  that,  in  a  century 
hence,  "Joseph  Andrews"  will  alone  survive  to  preserve 
Fielding's  name.  We  wish  Thackeray's  plan  had  permitted 
him  to  say  a  little  more  of  Richardson's  Dutch  style  of  novel- 
writing,  and  of  those  enormous  books  of  his,  reminding  you  of 
the  full-bottomed  periwigs  of  the  past,  in  their  minute  and 
elaborate  frizzle,  and  which  yet,  when  shaken  by  the  wind  of 
passion,  seem  sometimes  to  nod  as  grandly  as  the  "ambrosial 
curls  "  of  Jove  himself. 

Sterne  comes  next,  and  his  character  meets  with  very  se- 
vere and  summary  treatment — the  more,  perhaps,  and  deserv- 
edly, as  he  was  a  clergyman.  As  an  author,  he  has  been  the 
father  of  an  immense  family  of  fiction  writers.  Goethe  has 
had  him  in  his  eye,  both  in  the  "  Sorrows  of  Werter  "  and  in 
"  Wilhelm  Meister."  Rousseau  derived  a  great  deal  from  him. 
Jean  Paul  Richter,  although  possessing  far  more  sincerity  and 
depth  of  spirit,  has  copied  his  affected  manner.  The  Minerva 
Press  was  long  his  feeble  echo.  Southey's  "  Doctor "  was 


232  MODERN    CRITICS. 


very  much  in  his  style ;  and  the  French  novelists  are  still  em- 
ployed in  imitating  his  putrid  sentimentalism,  although  inca- 
pable of  his  humor  and  pathos.  Plagiarist  of  passages,  as  he 
has  been  proved,  he  was,  on  the  whole,  an  original  writer;  and, 
blackguard  as  he  was,  his  vices,  like  those  of  Rousseau  and 
Goethe,  have  contributed  to  the  power  and  piquancy  of  his 
writings.  We  state  this  as  a  fact,  not  as  a  plea  in  his  defence. 
He  seems  to  have  been  not  merely,  like  Fielding,  a  dissipated 
man,  but,  like  Poe,  a  heartless  scoundrel.  It  is  a  proof  of  the 
originality  of  his  mind  and  style,  that  he  arose  and  flourished 
in  spite  of  cliques  and  coteries,  and,  as  an  author,  lived  and 
died  alone.  His  works  are  now  somewhat  shorn  of  their  popu- 
larity ;  but  some  parts  of  them,  in  eloquence,  tenderness,  and 
humor,  are  not  surpassed  in  the  English  language.  "  Alas ! 
poor  Yorick !" 

The  last,  and  one  of  the  finest  sketches,  is  that  of  "  poor 
dear  Goldy,"  as  Johnson  used  to  call  him.  We  have  already 
tried,  in  a  series  of  antitheses,  to  describe  Steele.  It  would 
require  a  few  hundred  more  such  to  describe  Goldsmith.  He 
was  one  of  the  most  amiable  and  most  envious  of  men.  He 
played  with  every  child  he  met,  and  abused  almost  every  con- 
temporary author.  Himself  the  most  absurd  of  characters, 
he  had  the  keenest  perception  of  absurdities  in  others.  He 
"  wrote  like  an  angel,  and  talked  like  poor  poll."  He  never 
wrote  a  foolish  thing,  and  never  said  a  wise  one.  He  was  at 
once  Harlequin,  and  the  good  Samaritan.  He  divided  again 
and  again  his  last  shilling  with  poor  unfortunates,  and  told 
lies  by  the  bushel.  He  had  a  keen  sense  of  religion,  and  yet 
his  life  was  in  direct  opposition  to  many  of  its  precepts. 
Johnson  said  of  him,  "  Dr.  Goldsmith  was  wild,  sir;  but  he  is 
so  no  more."  Burke  burst  into  tears  at  the  news  of  his  death. 
Reynolds,  when  he  heard  of  it,  painted  no  more  that  day.  As 
a  writer,  he  had  a  most  enviable  little  garden-plot  of  reputa- 
tion. We  would  rather  have  his  fame  than  Homer's.  What 
delight  his  one  book,  "  The  Vicar  of  Wakefield,"  has  given ! 
What  shouts,  screams,  sweats  of  laughter,  have  his  plays 
elicited !  How  many  hearts  his  "  Deserted  Village "  has 
melted  within  them  !  How  many  thousands  in  foreign  lands, 

"  Remote,  unfriended,  melancholy,  slow, 
Or  by  the  lazy  Scheldt  or  wandering  Po," 


THOMAS    MACAITLAY.  233 


have  repeated  the  noble  lines  of  the  "  Traveler,"  and  blessed 
its  queer,  kind-hearted  author  ! 

Thackeray  closes  with  some  striking  remarks,  attempting 
to  show  that  the  calamities  of  authors  are,  in  general,  owing, 
not  to  the  neglect  of  the  public,  but  to  themselves.  There  is 
much  truth  in  what  he  says.  Literary  men  have  been  often 
improvident  and  immoral;  but  this,  while  it  has  sometimes 
proceeded  from  perverted  tastes,  has  often  also  proceeded  from 
the  precariousness  of  their  profession.  Literary  men,  how- 
ever industrious  and  regular,  are  wretchedly  underpaid ;  and 
except  when  they  have  another  profession  or  a  private  fortune, 
are  poor.  Now,  speaking  generally,  they  are  men  of  respect- 
able characters,  and  of  working  habits ;  and  yet,  does  one  out 
of  ten  of  them  die,  without  subscriptions  being  organised  for 
behoof  of  their  wives  and  children  ?  We  blame  not  the 
booksellers ;  they  cannot  be  expected,  taking  them  as  a  whole, 
to  look  at  the  matter  except  in  a  commercial  point  of  view ; 
but  we  blame,  first  of  all,  the  government,  for  not  devoting 
more  of  the  public  money  to  pensions,  prizes,  and  similar  re- 
wards of  literary  merit ;  and,  secondly,  the  public,  which, 
while  spending  so  much  upon  degrading  vices,  or  foolish  friv- 
olities, or  mere  passing  and  ephemeral  light  literature,  has  MO 
little  to  spare  for  works  of  genius,  and  gives  what  little  it 
does  give  with  an  air  of  such  supreme  contempt,  or  such  conde- 
scending patronage,  or  such  sublime  indifference. 

In  fine,  although  we  have  been  compelled  often  to  differ 
from  our  author,  we  thank  him  for  the  pleasure  we  have  de- 
rived from  his  work,  arid  especially  for  the  opportunity  it  has 
afforded  us  of  retreading  a  very  delightful  field  in  British 
literature. 


NO.  V.-THOMAS  MACAULAY. 

ONE  great  distinction  between  the  great  and  the  half-great 
is,  we  think,  this  :  the  half-great  man  is  in  his  own  age  fully 
commented  on  and  thoroughly  appreciated ;  his  character  is 
faithfully  inscribed  in  a  multitude  of  reviews ;  his  career  is 


234  MODERN    CRITICS. 


reflected  in  a  wall  of  mirrors,  which  image  his  every  step,  and, 
"now  in  glimmer,  and  now  in  gloom,"  trace  out  his  history 
ere  he  be  dead,  and  leave  very  little  for  posterity  to  add  or  to 
take  away.  The  great  man,  on  the  other  hand,  while  seldom 
quite  overlooked  or  ignored,  is  as  seldom  during  his  life-tima 
fully  recognised :  a  shade  of  doubt  hangs  around  his  form, 
like  mist  around  a  half-seen  Alp  ;  his  motions  are  all  tracked, 
indeed,  but  tracked  in  terror  and  in  suspicion ;  his  character, 
when  drawn,  is  drawn  in  chiaro-scuro ;  his  faults  are  chroni- 
cled more  fully  than  his  virtues ;  the  general  sigh  which  arises 
at  the  tidings  of  his  death  is  as  much  that  of  relief  as  of  sor- 
row ;  and  not  till  the  dangerous  and  infinite  seeming  man  has 
been  committed  safely  to  the  grave,  does  the  world  awake  to 
feel  that  it  has  hid  one  of  its  richest  treasures  in  the  field  of 
death.  Nor  should  we  entirely  for  this  blame  the  world.  For 
too  often  we  believe  that  high  genius  is  a  mystery,  and  a  ter- 
ror even  to  itself;  that  it  communicates  with  the  demoniac 
mines  of  sulphur,  as  well  as  with  the  divine  sources;  and  that 
only  God's  grace  can  determine  to  which  of  these  it  is  to  be 
permanently  connected ;  and  that  only  the  stern  alembic  of 
death  can  settle  the  question  to  which  it  has  on  the  whole 
turned,  whether  it  has  really  been  the  radiant  angel,  or  the 
disguised  fiend. 

We  might  illustrate  our  first  remark  by  a  number  of  exam- 
ples. But  our  recent  readings  supply  us  with  one  more  than 
sufficiently  appropriate  to  our  purpose.  We  have  risen  from 
reading  for  the  first  time  Prior's  "  Life  of  Burke,"  and,  for 
the  tenth  or  twentieth  time,  Macaulay's  "Essays,"  collected 
from  the  "  Edinburgh  Review."  And  as  we  rise  we  are  forced 
to  exclaim,  "  Behold  a  great  man,  fairly  though  faintly  paint- 
ed by  another,  and  a  half-great  man,  unintentionally  but  most 
faithfully  and  fully  sketched  by  himself."  Macaulay  has  elo- 
quently panegyrised  Burke,  and  accurately  discriminated  him 
i'rom  inferior  contemporary  minds.  But  he  seems  to  have  no 
idea  of  the  great  gulf  fixed  between  Burke's  nature  and  genius 
and  his  own.  He  always  speaks  as  if  he  and  the  object  of 
his  panegyric  were  cognate  and  kindred  minds.  Nay,  some  of 
his  indiscriminate  admirers  have  gone  the  length  of  equalling 
or  preferring  him  to  the  giant  of  the  Anti-Gallican  Crusade 
Let  us,  for  their  sakes,  as  well  as  his,  proceed  to  point  out  the 
essential  differences  between  the  two. 


THOMAS    MACAULAY.  235 


Burke,  then,  was  a  natural,  Macaulay  is  an  artificial,  man. 
Burke  was  as  original  as  one  of  the  sources  of  the  Nile ;  Ma- 
caulay is  a  tank  or  reservoir,  brimful  of  waters  which  have 
come  from  other  fountains.  Burke's  imagination  was  the 
strong  wing  of  his  strong  intellect,  and  to  think  and  to  soar 
were  in  general  with  him  the  same;  Macaulay 's  fancy  is  no 
more  native  to  him  than  was  the  wing  of  the  stripling  cherub 
assumed  by  Satan,  the  hero  of  the  "  Paradise  Lost,"  although, 
like  it,  it  is  of  many  "  a  colored  plume  sprinkled  with  gold." 

Macaulay's  intellect  is  clear,  vigorous,  and  logical ;  but 
Burke's  was  inventive  and  synthetic.  Burke  seems  always  re- 
pressing his  boundless  knowledge;  Macaulay  is  ostentatious 
in  the  display  of  his.  Of  Macaulay's  train  of  thought  you  can 
always  predict  the  end  from  the  beginning ;  Burke's  is  unex- 
pected and  changeful.  Macaulay's  principal  powers  are  two 
— enormous  memory  and  pictorial  power ;  Burke's  are  also 
two — subtle,  grasping,  interpenetrating  intellect  and  imagina- 
tion. Burke  is  the  man  of  genius ;  Macaulay  the  elaborate 
artist.  Burke  is  the  creature  of  impulses  and  intuitions — im- 
petuous, fervid,  often  imprudent,  and  violent ;  Macaulay  never 
commits  himself,  even  by  a  comma,  and  seems,  if  he  has  im- 
pulses, to  have  dipped  them  in  snow,  and,  if  he  has  intuitions, 
to  have  weighed  them  in  scales  before  they  are  produced  to  his 
readers.  Burke  has  turned  away  from  philosophic  specula- 
tion to  practical  matters — from  choice,  not  necessity ;  Macau- 
lay  from  necessity,  not  choice — it  is  an  element  too  rare  for 
his  wing.  Burke,  as  he  says  of  Reynolds,  descends  upon  all 
subjects  from  above ;  Macaulay  labors  up  to  his  loftier  themes 
from  below.  Burke's  digressions  are  those  of  uncontrollable 
power,  wantoning  in  its  strength ;  Macaulay's  are  those  of 
deliberate  purpose  and  elaborate  effort,  to  relieve  and  make 
his  byways  increase  the  interest  of  his  highways.  Burke's 
most  memorable  things  are  strong  simple  sentences  of  wisdom 
or  epithets,  each  carrying  a  question  on  its  point,  or  burning 
coals  from  his  flaming  genius ;  Macaulay's  are  chiefly  happy 
illustrations,  or  verbal  antitheses,  or  clever  alliterations. — 
Macaulay  often  seems,  and  we  believe  is,  sincere,  but  he  is 
never  in  earnest ;  Burke,  on  all  higher  questions,  becomes  a 
"  burning  one" — earnest  to  the  brink  of  frenzy.  Macaulay  is 
a  utilitarian  of  a  rather  low  type  ;  Burke  is,  at  least,  the  bust 


236  MODERN    CRITICS. 


of  an  idealist.  We  defy  any  one  to  tell  whether  Macaulay  be 
a  Christian  or  no ;  Burke's  High  Churchism  is  the  lofty  buskin 
in  which  his  fancy  loves  to  tread  the  neighborhood  of  the  altar, 
while  before  it  his  heart  kneels  in  lowly  reverence.  Macau- 
lay's  writings  often  cloy  the  mind  of  his  reader — you  are  full 
to  repletion ;  from  Burke's  you  rise  unsatisfied,  as  from  a 
crumb  of  ambrosia,  or  a  sip  of  nectar.  Macaulay's  literary 
enthusiasm  has  now  a  far  and  formal  air — it  seems  an  old 
cloak  of  college  days  worn  threadbare ;  Burke's  has  about  it 
a  fresh  and  glorious  gloss — it  is  the  ever-renewed  skin  of  his 
spirit.  Macaulay  lies  snugly  and  sweetly  in  the  pinfold  of  a 
party  ;  Burke  is  ever  and  anon  bursting  it  to  fragments.  Ma- 
caulay's moral  indignation  is  too  labored  and  antithetical  to 
be  very  profound :  Bui-ke's  makes  his  heart  palpitate,  his  hand 
clench,  and  his  face  kindle  like  that  of  Moses  as  he  came  down 
the  Mount.  Burke  is  the  prophet ;  Macaulay  the  grown  and 
well-furnished  schoolboy.  Burke,  during  his  life-time,  was 
traduced,  misrepresented,  or  neglected,  as  no  British  man  of 
his  order  ever  was  before  or  since;  Macaulay  has  been  the 
spoiled  child  of  a  too  early  and  a  too  easy  success.  As  they 
have  reaped  they  have  sown.  Macaulay  has  written  brilliant, 
popular,  and  useful  works,  possessing  every  quality  except 
original  genius,  profound  insight,  or  the  highest  species  of  his- 
torical truth  ;  Burke,  working  in  an  unthankful  parliamentary 
field,  has  yet  dropped  from  his  overflowing  hand  little  living 
germs  of  political,  moral,  literary,  pictorial,  and  philosophic 
wisdom,  which  are  striking  root  downwards,  and  bearing  fruit 
upwards  throughout  the  civilized  world.  Macaulay's  works 
hitherto  consist  of  several  octavo  volumes;  but  "Liberated 
America,"  "  India  set  free  from  Tyrants,"  and  "  Infidel  France 
llepelled,"  are  the  three  atlas  folios  which  we  owe  to  the  pen 
und  the  tongue  of  Edmund  Burke. 

AVe  had  other  points  of  contrast,  which  we  forbear  to  press. 
Indeed,  we  feel  ashamed  at  continuing  so  long  a  contrast 
between  two  persons  so  unlike.  But  Macaulay's  unwise 
friends  have  compelled  us  to  renew  the  old,  and  apparently 
superfluous  work,  of  showing  the  superiority  of  an  original  to 
an  imitator — of  a  sublime  genius,  informed  from  on  high,  to  a 
cultured  and  consummate  artist,  galvanized  from  below — of 
one  wearing  a  mantle  which  seemed  dropped  from  some  Fiery 


THOMAS    MACAULAY.  237 


Chariot  of  the  Past,  to  one  "  of  the  earth,  earthy" — of  one 
whose  flights  of  genius  and  wisdom  might  almost  entitle  him 
to  the  name  of  the  Second  Plato,  to  one  who  would  be  proud, 
we  suspect,  to  bear  that  of  the  Second  Bacon,  even  although 
the  meanness  were  added  to  the  majesty,  and  the  immortal 
degradation  to  the  everlasting  praise  of  the  ambiguous  and  all- 
overrated  name  of  the  Chancellor  of  England. 

We  propose  now,  first,  briefly  to  characterize,  and  in  a, 
general  way,  some  of  Macaulay's  Essays ;  and,  secondly,  to 
bend  special  attention  on  the  longest  and  most  elaborate  of 
them  all,  that  on  "  Lord  Bacon." 

There  are  in  every  author's  works  what  may  be  called  re- 
presfintativep&Tts  or  papers — papers  or  books  which  indicate  the 
leading  qualities  in  his  mind,  or  the  leading  stages  in  his  in- 
tellectual development.  Thus,  in  the  case  before  us,  we  have 
"  Milton"  representing  Macaulay  the  young  and  ardent 
Scholar,  "  Byron"  and  "  Johnson"  representing  him  as  the 
full-crown  Litterateur,  "  Warren  Hastings,"  and  a  host  more, 
representing  him  as  the  budding  Historian,  and  "  Lord  Ba- 
con" as  the  Thinker. 

We  have,  first,  "  Milton,"  still,  in  our  judgment,  the  sin- 
ccrest,  if  not  the  most  faultless  of  his  papers.  It  is  the  work 
of  a  premature  arid  impassioned  school-boy,  with  the  glow  of 
the  first  perusal  of  the  "  Paradise  Lost"  extant  on  his  cheek, 
and  with  the  boy's  dream  of  liberty  still  beating  in  his  heart. 
Mr.  Macaulay  says,  that  the  paper  contains  "  scarcely  a  para- 
graph of  which  his  mature  judgment  approves."  We  may 
add,  that  there  are  many  paragraphs  in  it  which  he  now  nei- 
ther could  nor  durst  write.  "  Men,"  says  James  Hogg,  in 
the  "  Noctes,"  "  often,  as  they  get  auld,  fancy  themsel's  wiser, 
whereas,  in  fac',  they  are  only  stoopider."  It  is  not  every  one 
who,  like  Robert  Burns,  with  his  early  volume  of  poems,  sees 
at  a  glance  that  the  "  first  bairn  o'  his  brain  is  also  the  best." 
Artistically,  Macaulay's  "  Milton"  is  not  his  best ;  but  it  is 
the  opening  of  his  vein — he  throws  forth  in  it  a  mass  of  pure 
ore,  which  he  has  since  chiefly  been  employed  in  beating  thin, 
or  mixing  with  baser  metals.  Thus  we  find  him,  in  many  of 
his  subsequent  papers,  cutting  and  clipping  at  his  splendid 
picture  of  the  Puritans — a  picture  which  we  deem  true  to  the 
life  of  these  illustrious  men,  as  well  as  to  the  first  sincere  and 


238  MODERN    CRITICS. 


burning  convictions  of  Macaulay's  young  soul.  He  was  not, 
as  Sir  Daniel  Sanford  somewhere  insinuates,  "  a  dishonest 
panegyrist  of  the  Puritans."  Brought  up  in  a  religious  atmos- 
phere, its  influence  still  floated  around  him,  as  he  wrote  of 
those  who  "  looked  down  with  contempt  on  the  rich  and  the 
eloquent,  on  nobles  and  on  priests — for  they  esteemed  them- 
selves rich  in  a  more  precious  treasure,  and  eloquent  in  a  more 
sublime  language — nobles  by  the  right  of  an  earlier  creation, 
and  priests  by  the  imposition  of  a  mightier  hand."  But, 
since,  the  giddy  effects  of  success  and  the  chilling  influences 
of  the  world  have  combined  to  damp  and  lower  his  lofty  tone, 
and  he  seems  more  than  once  inclined  to  give  up  the  Puritans 
as  a  ragged  regiment,  and  to  say,  "  I'll  not  march  with  them 
through  Coventry — that's  flat."  The  associate  of  Lord  Pal- 
merston  could  not  latterly  retain  much  sympathy  for  Harry 
Vane.  The  confrere  of  Whately  could  scarcely  now  be  honest 
in  praising  John  Brown.  When  he  wrote  "  Milton,"  he  was 
a  worshipper  dividing  his  adoration  between  three  objects — 
Poetry,  Liberty,  and  Protestantism — and  all  three  seemed 
robed  in  virgin  loveliness.  All  have  undergone  a  disenchant- 
ment— Poetry  no  longer  walks  the  clouds,  but  the  earth ; 
Liberty  is  no  more  the  "  mountain-nymph,"  but  the  highly 
accomplished  daughter  of  a  whig  nobleman  dwelling  in  Gros- 
venor  Square  ;  and  Protestantism  (see  his  review  of  "  Ranke") 
instead  of  being  the  true  child  of  the  Primitive  Age,  and  the 
destined  heir  of  the  Earth,  is  a  candidate  with  nearly  the 
same  chances  of  final  success,  as  the  "  Woman  sitting  on  the 
scarlet-colored  Beast,  and  with  the  names  of  Blasphemy  writ- 
ten on  her  forehead." 

Indeed,  we  advise  any  one  who  wishes  to  compute  the  extent 
and  the  rapidity  of  the  cooling  process  which  has  passed  over 
Macaulay's  mind,  to  compare  his  papers  on  "  Milton"  and  on 
"  Ranke."  In  the  one,  he  speaks  with  just  indignation  of  the 
vices  of  Popery,  "  complete  subjection  of  reason  to  authority, 
a  weak  preference  of  form  to  substance,  a  childish  passion  for 
mummeries,  an  idolatrous  veneration  for  the  priestly  charac- 
ter, and,  above  all,  a  merciless  intolerance."  In  his  review  of 
Von  Ranke,  on  the  other  hand,  how  tenderly  does  he  treat 
the  Jesuits,  some  of  whom  he  classes  beside  the  Reformers ; 
how  coolly  he  traces  the  progress  of  the  Catholic  re-actions ; 


THOMAS    MACAULAY.  239 


with  what  satisfaction  almost  he  records  that  Protestantism 
has  come  to  a  stand-still,  forgetting  or  ignoring  the  facts  that, 
although  as  a  proselytising  power  nearly  stationary  in  Europe, 
it  is  advancing  as  a  missionary  power  in  every  other  part  of 
the  globe ;  that  as  the  principal  element  of  British  progress, 
its  torch  is  leading  the  great  march  of  general  civilisation ; 
that,  in  its  rudest  shape,  as  "  Protestantism  protesting  against 
itself,"  it  has  of  late  begun  to  heave  in  revolution  every  coun- 
try and  throne  on  the  Continent ;  and  that  even  to  hint  a 
doubt  as  to  the  ultimate  result  of  its  struggle  with  Popery,  is 
an  act  of  treachery  and  cowardice,  and  betrays  an  ignorance 
of  its  true  nature  and  pretensions.  In  all  his  later  papers, 
Macaulay  talks  as  if  Popery  and  Protestantism  were  modifica- 
tions of  one  system,  instead  of  being  opposed,  as  light  is  to 
darkness,  inertia  to  progress,  deceit  to  truth,  God  to  the 
Devil.  And  while  considering  the  attempts  of  such  men  as 
Macaulay  to  fritter  away  to  nothing  the  distinctions  between 
God's  creed  and  the  Devil's  creed,  we  are  tempted  to  use  the 
language  of  the  prophet,  "  Wo  to  them  who  put  darkness  for 
light  and  light  for  darkness,  bitter  for  sweet  and  sweet  for 
bitter,  evil  for  good  and  good  for  evil."  The  contest  between 
Popery  and  Protestantism  is  no  scuffle  in  the  dark  between 
detachments  of  the  same  army ;  it  is  a  deadly  fight  between 
deadly  foes,  carried  on  in  one  compartment  of  that  field,  the 
world,  where  the  powers  of  light  and  darkness  have  been 
waging  for  ages  their  ever-deepening,  ever  widening,  but  not 
for  a  moment  dubious  engagement. 

Protestantism  at  a  stand-still !  Neither  as  a  statement  of 
the  facts  at  the  time  the  paper  was  written,  nor  as  a  prophecy 
of  what  has  occurred  since,  is  this  assertion  of  any  value.  It 
is  true  that  nations  do  not  of  late  change  their  creeds  as  indi- 
viduals their  cloaks.  Islands  are  not  now  converted,  as  of 
yore,  by  the  "  yellow  stick"  of  a  Protestant  proprietor  (see 
Dr.  Johnson's  "  Tour  to  the  Hebrides").  Protestantism  has, 
like  many  a  strong  tide,  been  rolled  back  again  and  again  in 
its  progress.  Catholicism,  on  the  other  hand,  has  had,  and 
has  at  this  hour,  spasmodic  revivals,  sudden  flushes,  like  the 
colors  of  the  dying  dolphin.  She  is  dying  hard.  Nor  can  she 
fully  expire  till  the  brightness  of  Christ's  coming  surprise, 
and  the  "  breath  of  his  mouth"  consume,  her.  But,  apart 


240  MODEEN    CRITICS. 


from  this,  we  think  it  difficult  for  a  candid  and  true-telling 
observer  to  shut  his  eyes  to  the  fact  of  a  slow,  steady,  cumu- 
lative advance  of  the  part  of  Protestantism — often  repulsed, 
sometimes  driven  fiercely  back,  but  always  returning  to  the 
charge,  and  gaining  sure  and  gradual  ground  with  the  wave  of 
each  successive  generation.  What,  after  all,  has  she  lost  ? 
At  her  birth,  she  was  hailed  by  literature  and  science :  they 
— on  the  points,  at  least,  in  which  she  differs  from  Popery — 
are  on  her  side  still.  Her  infant  arm  lifted  the  Printing 
Press,  the  Mariner's  Compass,  and  the  Telescope.  She  holds 
them  now  with  a  stronger  grasp  than  ever.  She  rent  then  the 
shroud  from  the  Bible,  and  she  still  defies  the  Catholic  world 
to  repair  the  rent.  In  Britain  and  the  United  States,  and 
the  great  rising  colonies  of  the  South,  and  in  the  stronger  half 
of  Germany,  she  possesses  the  real  keys  of  the  intellectual 
world — keys  more  powerful  than  those  fabled  ones  which  clank 
at  the  side  of  Peter.  In  our  own  country,  she,  not  long  ago, 
with  almost  a  superfluous  expenditure  of  power  and  wrath, 
repelled  the  insolence  of  Papal  aggression.  One  thing  only 
does  she  want  to  complete  the  strength  and  dignity  of  her 
attitude,  that  is,  not  to  become  more  Popish,  but  to  become 
more  Protestant.  Without  sacrificing  her  Bible  or  the  lead- 
lag  principles  of  her  creeds,  without  yielding  to  the  raving 
scepticisms  of  the  day,  she  might  and  must  accommodate  her 
spirit  and  language  to  those  of  the  age ;  she  might  in  many 
points  abridge  and  modify  her  articles  of  faith;  she  might  and 
must  get  rid  of  the  wretched  incrustations  of  Paganism  and 
Popery  which  are  still  around  her — become,  in  short,  that 
I\7ew  Protestantism  for  which  Milton's  spirit  long  ago  sighed, 
which  alone  can  attract  and  detain  before  the  Lord  the  young 
and  the  gifted  of  the  age,  and  be  thus  prepared,  as  the  "  Bride, 
the  Lamb's  Wife,"  for  welcoming  her  Husband,  when  he  de- 
scends to  the  Universal  Bridal.  And  then,  like  Milton's 
eagle,  shall  this  young  and  puissant  Protestantism  rise  above 
the  fogs  of  scepticism,  and  the  purple  mists  of  Rome,  and 
mate  her  stern  and  starry  eye  with  the  unearthly  and  far- 
streaming  glory  attending  the  steps  of  him  "  who  shall  come, 
will  come,  and  will  not  tarry." 

In  his  papers  on  Byron  and  Johnson,  we  find  his  enthusiasm 
wondrously  subd-ied  and  united  to  an  artistic  self-command, 


THOMAS    MACAULjlY.  241 


a  self-consciousness,  an  elaborate  wit,  a  bitter  sarcasm,  and  a 
tone  of  society,  not  to  be  found  in  his  first  paper.  With  the 
exception  of  his  papers  on  Madame  D'Arblay  and  Addisou, 
they  are  the  last  of  his  purely  literary  articles.  Before  he 
wrote  them,  he  had  entered  Parliament,  and  there  is  in  both  a 
great  deal  of  the  clever  Parliamentary  reply.  The  elaborate 
carelessness  of  the  papers  on  Byron  is  wonderful.  Never  was 
art  more  artificially  concealed.  Never  did  a  deliberate  and 
oil-smelling  production  seem  so  like  an  impromptu.  Done  in 
the  sweat  of  his  brow,  it  yet  reads  like  a  private  letter.  Its 
simplest- seeming  sentences  have  probably  cost  him  more 
trouble.  Such  are  a  "  poor  lord  and  a  handsome  cripple." 
"  Lord  Byron's  system  had  two  great  commandments,  to  hate 
your  neighbor,  and  to  love  your  neighbor's  wife."  How  cool 
such  fledglings  seem  !  and  yet  they  were  probably  hatched  with 
great  care,  and  amid  considerable  heat.  His  character  of 
Byron  is  a  long  antithesis,  and  might,  had  it  been  done  into 
rhyme,  have  figured  well  in  Pope's  "Moral  Epistles."  Bits 
of  blame,  and  pats  of  praise,  are  distributed  with  exemplary 
equality.  But,  to  apply  his  own  words,  "  it  is  not  the  busi- 
ness of  the  critic  to  exhibit  characters  in  this  sharp,  antitheti- 
cal way."  It  is  his  business  rather  to  show  us  the  true  nature 
of  the  man  at  once,,  by  a  winged  word,  or  a  simple  sentence,  or 
in  a  figure  "  piercing  to  the  dividing  asunder  of  his  soul  and 
spirit."  Had  he  spoken  of  Byron's  aimless  earnestness,  his 
unprincipled  and  ill-managed  power,  his  union  of  generosity 
ttud  selfishness,  his  strong  religious  tendencies,  connected  with 
an  utter  want  of  definite  religious  or  even  irreligious  opinions, 
or  hinted  at  the  dark  germ  of  derangement  which  was  working 
all  along  in  his  bosom,  he  had,  in  a  sentence,  helped  us  to  a 
distiucter  view  of  the  poet's  charaectr,  than  by  his  whole  seven- 
teen pages  of  vague  and  unniingled  brilliancy.  As  it  is,  he 
accounts  for  Byron's  matchless  misery  from  his  bad  education, 
the  loss  of  his  first  love,  the  nervousness  of  dissipation  ;  from 
every  cause  save  the  deepest  of  all — the  want  of  habitual  in- 
tercourse with  the  Father  of  Spirits.  Byron  was  miserable, 
because  he  felt  himself  an  orphan,  a  sunbeam  cut  off  from  his 
source,  "  without  hope,  and  without  God  in  the  world."  But 
how  puritanical  would  any  statement  like  this  have  looked  in 
the  eyes  of  the  Reform  Club,  or  of  the  splendid  circles  of 
Holland  House ! 


242  MODERN    CRITICS. 


To  Boswell  and  Johnson  he  is,  we  think,  unjuyt,  in  various 
measures.  Boswell,  in  his  relation  to  Johnson,  was  one  of  the 
most  sincere  and  remarkable  of  men.  Used  like  a  spaniel  by 
his  idol — now  caressed  contemptuously,  and  now  fiercely 
spurned — laughed  at  by  his  friends  and  by  the  world  for  his 
attachment  to  Johnson,  he  remained  true  to  him  to  the  last, 
and  has  suffered  for  it  after  as  well  as  before  death,  and  no- 
where more  severely  than  at  Macaulay's  hands.  To  worship 
was  the  master  instinct  of  his  being,  and  he  could  no  more 
avoid  following  it,  than  can  the  moon  escape  the  gravitation 
of  the  earth.  His  conduct  was  the  finer,  from  the  contrast  it 
presented  to  the  selfish  and  infidel  habits  of  the  eighteentli 
century.  Boswell  had  a  god — Johnson ;  but  Voltaire  and 
Hume  had  none,  except  themselves  or  their  callous  theories. 
Boswell,  in  short,  seems  to  us  the  first  crude  curdling  of  the 
future  Hero-worshipper,  as  the  Alchemist  was  the  rude  fore- 
runner of  the  genuine  Chemist.  Nor  were  his  talents  so  con- 
temptible as  Macaulay  alleges.  He  was  undoubtedly  a  clever 
and  cultivated  man.  And  the  power  to  which  he  principally 
pretended,  that  of  appreciation,  he  possessed  in  a  very  large 
degree.  He  saw  Johnson  as  few  even  since  have  seen  him ; 
he  gave  him,  during  his  life,  an  ante-past  of  the  praise  of 
future  ages,  and  he  added  one  important  item  to  his  claims 
for  immortality.  Boswell's  "  Life,"  according  to  many,  is 
Johnson's  greatest  work ;  according  to  all,  it  is  one  of  his 
best.  Nay,  we  cannot  but  fancy  that  Macaulay  originally 
possessed  a  great  deal  of  the  better  element  of  Boswell,  as 
his  "  Milton"  testifies,  and  that  to  clear  himself  of  the  suspi- 
cion of  being  a  Boswell  of  a  bigger  size,  he  has  shed  the  blood 
of  his  own  spiritual  father. 

Scarcely  less  unjust  is  he  to  Johnson  himself,  who,  had  he 
been  alive,  would  certainly  have  turned  him  on  the  spit  of  one 
of  his  rolling  periods  before  the  slow,  grim  blaze  of  his  manly 
indignation.  "  What  is  your  opinion,  Dr.  J.,  of  Thomas 
Babington  Macaulay  ?" — "  Sir,  the  dog  has  some  gifts  and 
accomplishments,  but  he  is  a  Whig,  a  vile  Whig,  a  trimmer, 
sir,  who  would  have  acted  as  laureate  to  King  George  and  the 
Pretender  at  the  same  time.  Sir,  he  would  have  written  a 
panegyric  on  the  Pretender,  on  the  steam  of  the  sack  which 
the  king  had  just  sent  in  at  his  door."  "  Isn't  he  something 


THOMAS    MACAULAY.  243 


like  Burke,  sir  °" — "  No,  sir  ;  Macaulay,  sir,  has  not  breath 
to  blow  the  bellows  to  Burke's  fire.  As  Goldy  would  say,  he 
has  Burke's  '  tongue,'  but  without '  the  garnish '  of  his  'brains.'  " 
— "  What  think  you  of  his  style,  sir  ?" — "  It  is  mine,  sir, 
docked,  yet  the  dog  turns  round,  and  abuses  the  suit  of  clothes 
he  has  not  only  stolen,  lout  mangled  down,  sir,  to  his  own  stat- 
ure."— "  Doesn't  he  know  a  great  deal,  sir  ?" — "  Yes,  sir, 
facts,  not  principles ;  he  has  millions  of  farthings,  but  few 
guineas,  and  no  bank-bills  ;  he  is  like  a  school-boy,  who  knows 
all  the  birds'  nests  in  the  parish,  but  can  neither  fly,  nor  lay 
an  egg,  sir,  nor  even  incubate  to  life  the  deposits  of  others." — 
"  What  think  you  of  his  religious  creed,  sir  ?" — "  Why,  sir, 
it  is  that  of  one  who  prefers  God  to  the  Devil,  because  he  is 
in,  and  not  because  he  ought  to  be  in,  and  who  is  full  of  sa- 
ving clauses  lest  the  tables  should  one  day  be  turned,  and  the 
New  Premier  prove  somewhat  absolute.  He  has  no  creed, 
sir,  only  a  new  credibility  of  God  and  the  gospels,  sir." — "  Isn't 
he  descended  from  your  old  friend,  Miss  Macaulay,  sir  ?  " — 
"  Too-too-too,  sir,  not  from  Miss  Macaulay,  surely,  sir.  His 
grandfather  was  a  minister  in  the  Hebrides,  and  probably  had 
the  second  sight,  which  he  has  not  left  to  his  descendant,  any 
more  than  old  Zachary  left  him  his  religion,  sir." 

Dr.  Johnson's  merit,  according  to  Macaulay,  has  now  shriv- 
elled up  into  his  "  careless  table-talk."  His  writings  have  lit- 
tle merit  .  His  criticisms  on  Shakspeare  and  Milton  are 
"wretched."  He  knew  nothing  of  the  "genus,  man — only  of 
the  species,  Londoner."  His  style  is  "  systematically  vicious." 
His  mannerism  is  "  sustained  only  with  constant  effort."  His 
"  big  words  are  wasted  on  little  things."  His  prejudices  and 
intellectual  faults,  too,  are  magnified  by  being  torn  from  their 
context,  and  set  up  in  cluster  upon  one  pillory.  Thus  com- 
placently does  he  try  to  "  write  down  "  old  Sam  an  ass.  The 
attempt  is  as  insolent  as  we  hope  to  show  it  to  be  vain.  Now, 
first,  his  table-talk  was  not  "  careless."  It  was  the  very 
sweat  of  his  mind.  In  all  good  society  he  "  talked  Lis  best." 
Secondly,  it  has  discovered  no  new  powers  in  Johnson's  mind, 
although  it  has  revealed  new  weaknesses.  It  has  increased 
our  notion  of  his  variety,  shrewdness,  and  readiness  of  retort, 
but  not  of  his  power,  eloquence,  and  deep-hearted  sincerity  of 
nature.  Thirdly,  with  regard  to  the  prejudices  and  failings 


244  MODERN     CRITICS. 


of  this  mighty  man  of  valor,  we  ought  to  remember  his  time, 
his  training,  the  dark  disease  which,  like  the  leprosy  in  an  an- 
cient house,  sent  a  stream  of  misery  and  ernbryotic  madnesg 
throughout  all  the  porticoes  of  his  splendor,  and  all  the  col- 
umns of  his  strength — polluted  every  door,  and  looked  out  at 
every  window — to  remember  that,  strong  and  rock-founded 
that  house  must  have  been,  to  contain  unbroken  such  a  fearful 
guest — and  to  remember,  in  fine,  that  he  is  a  poor  forester 
who  judges  of  an  oak  by  its  gnarled  knots — and  a  petty  as- 
tronomer who  weighs  the  spots  against  the  body  of  the  sun. 
Fourthly,  that  his  criticisms  on  Shakspeare  and  Milton  do 
not  bring  out  the  minor  beauties,  the  more  delicate  shades,  the 
subtler  meanings,  of  our  two  great  national  poets,  is  admitted. 
Johnson's  mental,  like  his  bodily,  eye  saw  only  tall  cliffs,  wide 
fields,  bold  mountains,  broad  outlines — it  was  not  conversant 
with  details  or  minute  varieties.  But  who  has  spoken  better 
of  the  more  general  and  palpable  qualities  of  Shakspeare,  or 
of  "  Paradise  Lost  "^the  pyramid  of  Milton's  handiwork  ? 
It  he  found  to  surpass  even  his  own  Brobdignagian  stature, 
and  looking  up  to  it  in  reverence,  he  had  little  leisure  to  mark 
the  subordinate  buildings  on  which  Milton  had  slowly  piled 
up  its  proud  pinnacle.  He  is  accused  of  not  praising  "  The 
Castle  of  Indolence  "  very  warmly,  but  he  gives  its  author, 
and  his  far  better  poem  "  The  Seasons,"  their  full  meed.  He 
called  "  Gray  a  barren  rascal,  and  Churchill  a  blockhead ;" 
but,  if  Mr.  Macaulay  had,  as  at  other  times,  chosen  to  trans- 
late these  expressions  out  of  Johnsonese  into  plain  English, 
they  had  just  meant  the  truth — this,  namely,  that  Gray's  ge- 
nius was  not  so  prolific  as  his  learning  was  extensive,  and  that 
Churchill  was  not  so  good  as  he  was  able,  and  not  so  able  as 
many  thought.  He  has,  indeed,  admitted  many  stupid  fellows 
into  his  "  Lives  of  the  Poets;"  but,  as  he  said  he  would,  he 
has,  in  his  own  way,  "  told  us  that  they  were  blockheads." 
In  fact,  his  real  offence,  as  a  critic,  in  the  eyes  of  many,  is 
what,  with  us,  is  a  merit.  Himself  a  sincerely  honest  and  pi- 
ous man,  an  intense  hater  of  humbug,  of  deceit,  of  brazen-fac- 
ed infidelity,  of  twaddling  sentimentalism,  of  the  cant  of  vir- 
tue, and  of  the  cant  of  vice,  he  has  unsparingly  exposed  such 
offences  wherever  he  found  them,  and  many  who  cry  out  about 
his  critical,  have,  in  fact,  taken  fright  at  his  moral,  severity. 


THOMAS    MACAULAY.  £45 


Fifthly,  as  to  the  faults  and  mannerism  of  his  style,  we  are 
not  "  careful  to  answer  in  this  matter,"  least  of  all,  in  reply 
to  the  leading  mannerist  of  this  century.  Johnson's  is  the 
mannerism  of  a  left-handed  giant.  He  throws  awkwardly, 
but  he  throws  stones  which  Macaulay  could  not  lift.  To  say 
that  he  "  sustains  his  style  by  constant  effort,"  is  simply  un- 
true. It  is  notorious  that  the  most  sounding  papers  in  "  The 
Rambler "  were  written  at  a  sitting,  and  currents  calamo. 
He  had  but  to  dip  his  pen  in  ink,  and  there  flowed  out  a  cur- 
rent of  thought  and  language,  wide  and  voluminous  as  the 
Ganges  in  flood.  We  own  our  wrath  always  kindles  when  we 
hear  others  beside  Macaulay  preferring  Addison  to  Johnson. 
We  are  not  blind,  as  our  former  paper  testifies,  to  his  timid 
beauties,  his  inimitable  irony,  slight  and  withering  as  the  smile 
of  a  scornful  angel,  his  languid  graces,  the  elegant  negligence 
of  his  costume,  his  sweet-blooded  and  subtle  humor,  or  his 
graver  powers  of  contemplation  and  pathos;  but  there  is  this 
important  difference  in  Johnson's  favor  : — Addison  is  chiefly  a 
mirror  ;  Johnson  is  a  native  mind.  Addison  reflects  back — 
man  and  nature;  Johnson  is  a  thinker,  penetrating  into  both. 
Addison's  discussions  and  philosophising,  even  when  just,  are 
feeble;  Johnson's,  even  when  erroneous,  are  alwa}^s  strorg. 
Witness  the  papers  on  the  "  Paradise  Lost  "  by  the  one,  and 
the  "  Lives  of  the  Poets  "  by  the  other — a  work  which,  with 
all  its  faults,  is  the  most  masculine  and  massive  body  of  criti- 
cism in  the  English  tongue.  Addison's  may  be  called  almost 
a  female  mind  of  exquisite  calibre ;  Johnson  was  every  inch  .a 
man,  nay,  a  son  of  Anak,  from  the  rough  earth,  but  with  a 
heart  touched,  and  a  brow  radiant  with  the  influence  and  light 
of  heaven.  We  base,  indeed,  our  deepest  admiration  of  this 
great  man  on  his  moral  and  religious  qualities.  We  are  nev- 
er weary  of  thinking  of  his  sterling  honesty,  his  rugged  integ- 
rity, his  fearlessness  of  consequences,  his  untaught  dignity, 
his  generous  sympathies  for  all  real  sorrows,  his  benevolence 
— bear-like  in  its  external  manifestations,  lamb-like  in  its 
heart — the  depth  and  profundity  of  his  spiritual  convictions, 
the  tenderness  of  his  conscience,  the  firmness  with  which  he  clung 
to  Christianity,  in  a  low  and  infidel  age,  "  faithful  found 
among  the  faithless,"  his  habitual  fear  of  God — yea,  we  are 
not  soon  weary  of  admiring  the  rim  of  righteous  anger  which 


246  MODERN    CRITICS. 


surrounded  him  at  times — the  severity  of  his  occasional  judg- 
ments, the  fury  of  his  assaults  upon  impostors  of  all  sorts,  and 
we  can  even  bear  with  his  sturdy  prejudices,  the  errors  of  his 
temperament,  the  hasty  verdicts  of  his  excited  conversation, 
his  political  and  religious  bigotries,  and  the  rough  usage  he  of- 
ten gave  to  his  friends  and  worshippers.  These,  like  the  scars 
of  scrofula  upon  his  cheek,  are  not  beautiful,  but  they  arc  his, 
and  if  they  injure  the  grace  of  his  aspect,  they  neither  take  a 
cubit  from  his  intellectual  stature,  nor  damp  the  vehement, 
though  irregular  flame  of  benevolence,  sincerity,  manhood, 
and  piety,  which  burned  in  his  heart.  Would  to  God  that 
some  similar  giant  were  now  to  tower  up  suddenly  above  the 
crowd  of  our  sciolists,  sceptics,  and  small  poets,  and  rebuke 
them  into  sense,  modesty,  and  Christianity  again  !  Johnson 
was  too  decidedly  an  honest,  fearless,  and  brawny  original  for 
Macaulay's  handling.  He  succeeds  far  better  in  depicting  the 
splendid  clap-trap  of  Chatham,  the  girncrack  ingenuity  and 
polished  malice  of  Horace  Walpole,  the  manners-painting  force 
of  Madame  D'Arblay,  and  the  cultured  common  sense  and 
elaborate  eloquence  of  Sir  James  Macintosh.  He  succeeds 
better  still  in  crushing  the  wasp  Croker,  sting,  wings,  bag  of 
venom,  and  all,  by  one  nervous  grasp  of  his  strong,  hot  hand, 
or  in  clapping  into  air,  amid  mimic  thunder,  the  empty  paper- 
bags  of  some  of  our  modern  poets. 

As  Macaulay's  series  of  papers  went  on,  it  became  manifest 
that  he  was  gradually  diverging  from  the  flowery  fields  of  lite- 
rature, and  turning  towards  the  more  difficult  and  less  fre- 
quented heights  of  history.  His  "  Machiavelli,"  "  Burleigh," 
"  Chatham,"  "  Temple,"  and  "  Lord  Clive,''  were  all,  in  real- 
ity, historical  chapters — the  antennas  of  coining  historical 
works.  Of  such,  by  far  the  ablest  and  most  brilliant  is  the 
article  on  "  Warren  Hastings."  Indeed,  we  find  in  it,  as  in  a 
microcosm,  all  the  qualities,  positive  and  negative,  since  more 
largely  displayed  in  his  "History  of  England."  These  are 
intimate  acquaintance,  not  only  with  the  leading  events,  but 
•with  the  minutiae,  the  gossip,  the  family  history,  and  the  float- 
ing scandal  of  the  period ;  intense  sympathy  with  the  person- 
nel of  his  heroes — a  partiality  for  certain  characters  amount- 
ing to  favoritism — a  hatred  for  others  amounting  to  fury — im- 
mense power  of  painting  traits  in  character,  and  scenes  in  his- 


THOMAS    MACAULAY.  247 


toric  life — an  inferior  gift  of  describing  nature — frequent, 
cool,  and  refreshing  literary  allusions,  blowing  like  breezes 
across  the  otherwise  arid  or  blood-dried  pages  of  his  tale — 
Whig  zeal  and  religious  indifferentism,  both  indifferently  con- 
cealed— an  occasional  negligence  of  style  more  highly  finished 
in  reality  than  the  most  swelling  of  his  paragraphs — great  and 
labored  passages,  reminding  you  of  historical  paintings,  and 
relieved  by  surrounding  etchings  of  familiar  life — a  perpetual 
consciousness  of  himself,  and  of  the  artistic  nature  of  his 
task,  which  seldom  permits  any  spontaneous  betrayal  of  emo- 
tion, and  makes  even  his  enthusiasm  seem  cold,  as  the  hair  of 
a  sculptured  Moenad — something  of  the  interest  and  simplic- 
ity of  Hume,  along  with  the  richer  tints  of  Robertson,  and 
the  gorgeous  description  of  Gibbon — all  the  qualities  of  a 
good  novel,  added  to  some  of  those  of  an  ideal  history — these 
are  the  leading  peculiarities  alike  of  his  historical  papers, 
such  as  "  Hastings,"  and  of  his  "  England,"  and  they  consti- 
tute him  a  historian  after  this  age's  own  heart. 

Admitting  right  cordially  the  exceeding  interest  and  graphic 
power  of  the  paper  on  Hastings,  there  are  one  or  two  points 
on  which  we  must  differ.  We  find  in  it  evidences  of  that  in- 
firmity of  trimming  and  balancing  which  so  easily  besets  our 
author.  We  certainly  do  not  think  that  Warren  Hastings  was 
a  monster.  Monsters  in  the  moral  world  are  still  rarer  than 
monsters  in  the  natural ;  but,  if  the  half  of  what  Burke  said, 
and  the  whole  of  what  even  Macaulay  says  against  him  be 
true,  he  must  have  been  one  of  the  worst  characters  in  history. 
If  seduction,  perfidy,  cruelty,  greed,  murder,  both  retail  and 
wholesale,  implacable  revenge,  and  insatiable  ambition,  with  a 
hundred  smaller  items  of  falsehood  and  corruption,  are  to  be 
screened  by  success,  it  is  time  that  the  Ten  Commandments 
were  burned,  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  buried,  and  the  laws 
of  nations  and  of  nature  repealed.  Either  he  was  one  of  the 
worst  or  one  of  the  most  maligned  of  men.  Macaulay  takes 
neither  view ;  but  between  admiration  of  Hastings'  abilities, 
and  anger  at  some  of  his  actions — reverence  for  Burke,  and 
pity  for  the  accused — sympathy  with  the  oppressed  people  of 
India,  and  wonder  at  the  splendid  edifice  of  empire  which  was* 
based  on  their  blood — he  himself  hangs,  and  he  suspends  his 
readers  in  a  state  of  equilibrium  which  becomes  half-painful 


248  MODERN    CniTICS. 


and  half-ludicrous,  and  tempts  you  at  last  to  exclaim,  What 
would  you  have  us  to  think  of  this  man,  after  all  ?  Was  he 
a  wise  governor,  or  a  cruel  and  unmanly  oppressor  ?  Shall  we 
bless,  or  shall  we  ban  him  ?  Shall  he  sit  in  the  synod  of  the 
gods,  or,  where  Burke  would  have  placed  him,  in  that  part  of 
the  Indian  Pantheon  where  dwell  the  horrid  deities  who  pre- 
side over  small-pox  and  murder,  and  who,  like  the  tremendous 
Three  in  the  '  Curse  of  Kehama,'  expecting  the  earning  of  the 
'  Man  Almighty,'  might  be  conceived  to  wait  impatiently  for 
his  advent,  '  having  been  found  worthy '  to  sit  beside  them  on 
a  burning  throne  ?" 

There  is  another  point  on  which  we  crave  a  word :  it  is  on 
the  authorship  of  the  "  Letters  of  Junius."  This  Macaulay, 
somewhat  dogmatically,  attributes  entirely  to  Sir  Philip  Francis, 
although  there  is  much  internal  evidence  to  prove  him  incapa- 
ble of  their  better  portions.  The  mere  mechanism  of  their 
composition,  the  curt  style,  the  fierceness  and  occasional  ma- 
lignity of  their  spirit,  he  could  have  supplied,  but  the  pro- 
founder  touches  of  satire,  the  strong  clearness  of  diction,  the 
high,  almost  superhuman  scorn  which  so  often  inspirits  them, 
the  frequent  gleams  of  deep  political  sagacity,  and  the  figures, 
sparing  in  number,  but  breathing  an  intense  poetical  spirit — 
all  point  to  the  darker  moods  and  the  fretted  and  gall-dipped 
pen  of  Edmund  Burke.  We  do  not  mean  that  he  was  their 
sole  or  chief  author,  but  that  his  subtle  genius  had  its  share  in 
their  conception,  even  as  it  had  in  some  of  Barry's  pictures 
and  Reynolds's  discourses;  and  that  he  drew  many  of  their 
sharpest  and  finest  strokes,  seems  to  us  certain,  and  to  some 
others,  too,  who  can  recognise  that  "  Roman  hand,"  and  who 
know  that  its  versatility  was  equal  to  its  power.  Burke  noto- 
riously was  in  the  secret*  of  their  authorship.  He  was,  ac- 
cording to  Johnson,  the  only  man  living  equal  to  their  compo- 
sition. And  as  to  style,  neither  he  nor  Junius  were  consist- 
ent in  it.  Junius  had  three  different  styles — that  of  his  pri- 
vate notes  to  Woodfall — that  of  his  hasty  letters,  such  as  his 
first  to  Home  Tooke — and  that  of  his  more  elaborate  epistles. 
Burke,  too,  strange  to  say,  had  three  styles — his  plain  style, 
as  of  his  charges  against  Hastings — his  middle  style,  as  of  his 

*  See  Prior's  "  Burke,"  Vol.  i. 


THOMAS    MACAULY.  249 


"  Sublime  and  Beautiful,"  and  "  Thoughts  on  the  Present 
Discontents  " — and  his  ornate  and  poetical  style,  as  in  his 
"  French  Revolution,"  aud  his  "  Regicide  Peace."  There  are, 
besides,  passages  and  clauses  in  Junius  which  we  are  as  sure 
were  Burke's,  as  if  we  had  seen  him  write,  or  dictate,  or  inter- 
line them.  Take  one,  "  the  melancholy  madness  of  genius 
without  the  inspiration."  Burke  once  said  to  Boswell  about 
Herbert  Croft,  "  He  has  the  contortions  of  the  sibyl  ivithout 
the  inspiration."  Of  another  we  may  say  (accommodating 
Macaulay's  language  on  another  occasion),  "Aut  Burke  aut 
Diabolus."  It  is  in  reference  to  Wilkes:  "  The  gentle  breath 
of  peace  will  leave  him  on  the  surface,  unruffled  and  unremov- 
ed.  It  is  only  the  tempest  that  lifts  him  from  his  place." 
We  could  add  a  hundred  more.  On  the  whole,  were  we  on  a 
jury  to  try  the  question  as  to  the  authorship  of  "  Junius," 
we  should  be  compelled,  between  the  conflicting  forces  of  the 
external  and  the  internal  evidences,  to  return  a  verdict  against 
"  Edmund  Burke,  Philip  Francis,  and  other  person  or  persons 
unknown" 

Ne  sutor  ultra  crepidam,  is  a  proverb  so  commonplace,  as 
to  require  an  apology  for  its  repetition.  And  yet  we  cannot 
remember  anything  more  appropriate  to  the  light  in  which  we 
are  now  to  regard  the  subject  of  this  sketch,  in  connection 
with  his  paper  on  Lord  Bacon — which  is,  Macaulay  the  Think- 
er. To  use  his  own  illustration,  "  Hannibal  at  Waterloo,  or 
Wellington  at  Plataaa,"  were  not  more  thoroughly  out  of  place 
than  Macaulay  "found"  in  the  difficult  region  of  intellectual 
thought — a  region  which  he  knows  not  fully,  has  seldom  visit- 
ed, has  visited  not  in  the  choicest  society,  and  where  he  has 
never  yet,  we  suspect,  spent  a  night,  the  glooms  and  the  gran- 
deurs of  which  are  alike  unappreciated  by  his  strong  but  un- 
imaginative and  uninstinctive  spirit. 

Had  we  foreseen  that  Macaulay  meant  so  far  to  compromise 
his  reputation  as  to  write  a  paper  on  a  purely  philosophical 
subject,  we  should  have  put  in  a  previous  protest,  based  on  the 
following  grounds  : — First,  in  all  his  other  writings  he  gives  no 
evidence  of  possessing  the  elements  of  a  genuine  thinker.  He 
thinks  in  facts,  not  in  figures  or  symbols.  He  estimates  all 
things  by  their  sharp  edges,  not  by  their  solid  bulks  or  their 
ideal  shadows.  He  looks  at  them  not  as  they  are,  but  as  they 


250  MODERN    CRITICS. 


seem  to  him,  or  to  the  mirror  from  which  he  has  caught  their 
shape.  The  term  absolute  (except  in  its  political  sense,  as 
connected  with  "  absolute  power !")  has  to  him  little  or  no 
meaning.  He  has  an  outer  eye  of  much  scope  and  clearness, 
but  his  inner  eye  is  midnight.  We  dare  any  of  his  admirers 
to  quote  a  sentence  of  his  writings  containing  in  it  a  new 
truth,  chased  in  a  new  image — "  an  apple  of  gold  in  a  picture 
of  silver."  Of  poetic  physics,  he  has  some  distinct  idea — of 
poetic  metaphysics  none  whatever.  Nor  has  he  given  himself 
that  philosophic  culture  and  training  which  would  qualify  him 
for  sounding  metaphysical  depths.  With  all  his  vast  knowl- 
edge, it  is  clear  to  us  that  he  has  only  run  across  the  surface 
of  philosophy,  and  studied  it  rather  as  a  historian,  than  as  a 
profound  critic  of  its  various  systems  and  schools.  Nor  has 
his  temperament  or  his  heart  ever  urged  him  on  to  very  ear- 
nest personal  inquiry  into  the  grounds  of  belief  or  leading 
principles  of  thought.  Easily  satisfied  himself,  he  has  been 
unable  to  give  satisfaction  or  even  suggestive  hints  to  earnest 
and  anxious  inquirers.  The  profound  thinker  is  either  decid- 
edly religious  in  his  temperament  and  views,  or  decidedly  the 
reverse.  Macaulay  is  neither.  And  hence,  while  he  speaks 
on  historical  matters  with  authority  and  power,  on  all  abstract 
questions  he  exhibits  the  feebleness  without  the  modesty  of  a 
child.  The  voice  and  manner  are  those  of  a  master,  but  the 
matter  and  spirit  are  those  of  an  inapt  and  forward  scholar. 

Lord  Bacon  was  a  subject,  certainly,  more  than  worthy  of 
all  the  powers  of  the  author.  The  apparent  contradictions  in 
his  character,  the  singular  and  humiliating  events  of  his  his- 
tory, his  position  as  the  leader  of  a  wide  intellectual  move- 
ment, his  achievements  as  the  broad-browed  parent  of  modern 
method — the  width  of  his  mind,  which  reminds  you  of  the 
first  rude  maps  of  the  globe,  where  the  breadth  and  the  blun- 
ders are  alike  enormous — the  oriental  wealth  and  splendor  of 
his  fancy,  recalling  to  you  Solomon  "  speaking  of  trees,  from 
the  cedar  to  the  hyssop,"  and  issuing  proverbs  by  the  thou- 
sand— the  proud,  positive  results  which  have  sprung  from  his 
system  have  combined  to  render  the  woolsack  on  which  sat  he 
whom  the  poet  calls 

"  The  greatest,  wisest,  meanest  of  mankind," 


THOMAS    MACAULAY.  251 


more  interesting  and  more  magnificent  in  many  men's  view 
than  the  thrones  of  "  Ormus  or  of  Ind,"  and  to  make  them 
think  of  an  angel  seated  on  a  planet,  and  looking  down  in  su- 
preme dominion  upon  the  subjected  provinces  of  a  universal 
intellectual  empire. 

To  grapple  with  such  a  mind  and  character  was  a  noble 
task,  and  Macaulay  has  undoubtedly  brought  to  it  all  the  re- 
sources of  his  knowledge,  the  strength  of  his  ingenuity,  and 
the  energies  of  his  style.  But  he  has  at  the  same  time  ex- 
posed himself  to  certain  grave  charges,  into  the  proof  of 
which  we  must  now  shortly  enter. 

Now,  first,  as  in  reference  to  Hastings  and  other  equivocal 
characters,  he  has  not  painted  Bacon  well  as  a  whole.  He  has 
set  the  apparently  contradictory  parts  of  his  character  in  vio- 
lent and  antithetical  opposition  to  each  other — opposition  so 
•  violent  as  to  produce  a  monstrous  effect ;  he  has  not  seen  or 
shown  to  us  any  principle  accounting  for  and  unifying  the 
whole.  God  does  not  make  men  on  the  plan  of  antithesis. 
Ptercdactyles  and  all  such  contradictions  of  chaos  are  long 
extinct.  Inconsistencies,  of  course,  there  are  in  all  charac- 
ters :  but  where  a  character  is  hollow  and  false,  the  intel- 
lectual power  must  be  partially  vitiated,  and  where  the  heart 
is  extinct,  the  mind  must  have  its  flaws  and  feebleness  too. 
Had  Bacon  been  the  "  greatest,"  he  never  could  have  been  the 
"  meanest"  of  mankind.  The  charges  which  Macaulay  so 
ably  and  unanswerably  urges  against  his  morale  tell,  in  some 
measure,  against  his  method  of  investigating  truth.  Who,  if  we 
may  accommodate  Scripture  language,  "can  bring  a  warm  sys- 
tem out  of  a  cold  nature,  a  true  creed  out  of  a  false  heart  ?" 
No,  not  one ! 

There  never  was  any  such  mis-creation  as  a  great  bad  man, 
although  wonderful  and  extraordinary  villains  have  abounded. 
A  really  great  man  cannot  be  bad — a  bad  man  cannot  be  really 
great.  Prove  the  greatness,  and  you  disprove  the  badness — 
or  prove  the  badness,  and  you  shatter  down  the  greatness.  A 
great  man  may  be  defined  as  one  living  under  a  lofty  ideal,  and 
having  power  in  part  to  realise  it.  But  the  presence  of  a 
lofty  ideal  proves  the  absence  of  systematic  and  cold-blooded 
depravity,  of  abject  meanness,  of  cowardice,  cruelty,  or  false- 
hood. All  true  greatness  is  more  or  less  moral.  The  highest 


252  MODERN    CRITICS. 


cherub  is  also  the  purest  seraph.  The  player  Shakspearo  was 
an  infinitely  better  and  greater  man  than  the  Chancellor  Ba- 
con, and  would  have  died  rather  than  have  committed  one  of 
his  viler  deeds,  or  handled  one  piece  of  his  unclean  gold. 
The  philosophers  of  Greece,  whom  Macaulay  would  crush  un- 
der Bacon's  feet,  had  many  faults,  but  not  the  worst  of  them 
cuts  such  a  disgraceful  and  contemptible  figure  as  he ;  aud 
does  this  furnish  no  prestige  in  favor  of  their  intuitive  and 
transcendental  method  ? 

The  extraordinary  and  able  men  of  no  principle  or  heart, 
who  abound  in  the  history  of  the  world,  remind  us  of  busts — 
all  brow  and  no  heart.  They  are  the  incarnations  of  mere  un- 
derstanding— having  neither,  if  we  may  use  Kant's  language, 
the  pure  reason,  which  perceives  the  absolute  as  existence — nor 
the  practical  reason,  which  discerns  it  as  moral  law.  The 
great  are  composed  of  a  combination,  more  or  less  varied  in 
its  proportions,  of  the  pure  reason,  the  logical  understanding, 
the  practical  reason,  and  the  imaginative  sympathy.  They 
are  the  composites,  although  the  combination  is  definite,  not 
contradictory.  Whereas,  the  merely  extraordinary  man  has 
the  simple  positive  of  understanding,  added  to  a  copious  list 
of  negatives.  To  this  Bacon  united  the  gift  of  a  munificent 
fancy,  not  to  speak  of  his  multifarious  knowledge  aud  acquire- 
ments. 

But,  secondly,  and  chiefly,  we  charge  Macaulay  with  greatly 
overrating  Lord  Bacon's  philosophy,  and  with  underrating, 
at  the  same  time,  the  philosophies  which  preceded  him.  And 
here  we  mean  out  of  his  own  mouth  to  condemn  him.  Now, 
to  pursue  him  down  his  paper  seriatim,  we  find  him,  as  to  the 
aim  or  end  of  the  two  philosophies,  admitting,  that  while  Ba- 
con's sought  solely  the  "  relief  of  man's  estate,"  that  of  the 
ancients  aimed  at  "  moral  perfection."  In  other  words,  Bacou 
professed  to  cure  corns,  and  Plato  to  heal  consciences.  Bacon 
wished  to  teach  men  to  make  better  ships,  or,  as  Macaulay  has 
it,  "better  shoes;"  and  Plato  to  teach  them  to  have  nobler 
and  happier  souls.  Bacon  sought  "  fruit,"  perhaps  ingrafted 
on  rotten  trees ;  whereas  Plato  and  his  school  sought,  although 
with  imperfect  success,  to  make  the  root  of  the  tree  sound,  and 
its  circulating  sap  pure.  Bacon  sought  to  make  men  better 
citizens  of  this  hollow  world;  Plato  to  prepare  them  for  the 


THOMAS    MACAULAY  253 


"  City  of  God  ' — the  everlasting  mansions  of  the  true,  the 
spiritual,  and  the  happy.  How  significant  that  Bacon  died, 
in  consequence  of  seeking  to  stuff  a  fowl  with  snow — an  apt 
emblem  of  the  coldness  and  comparative  pettiness  of  his  me- 
thod, and  rather  a  striking  type,  too,  of  the  manner  in  which 
his  ablest  modern  panegyrist  has  sought  to  embalm  a  cowardly 
nature  in  elegant,  elaborate,  and  icy  praise. 

'•'•Although  with  ^perfect  success."  These  words  will  be 
seized  on  by  the  Baconian,  and  turned  against  us.  But  first, 
we  intend,  ere  we  close,  to  show  that  the  success  of  Bacon's 
method  has  been  exaggerated ;  secondly,  we  remember  the 
words,  "  in  great  attempts  'tis  glorious  even  to  fail ;"  thirdly, 
to  Plato  and  his  direct  or  indirect  influence,  we  may  attribute 
all  the  mere  philosophic  spiritualism  of  the  cultivated  world 
— which,  while  "  far  below  the  good,  is  far  above  the  great;" 
fourthly,  Platonism  was  the  herald  of  Christianity,  and  its 
failure  lay  in  the  want  of  some  elements  which  Christianity 
supplied — -namely,  a  perfect  model,  a  supernatural  power,  and 
a  permanent  divine  influence  ;  fifthly,  on  the  grounds  on  which 
Macaulay  claims  superiority  to  Bacon  over  the  Platonic  school, 
we  might  claim  superiority  for  a  tailor  over  Bacon  or  Plato 
either.  But  we  may  leave  the  details  of  this  startling  prefer- 
ence, although  legitimately  deducible  from  our  author's  pre- 
mises, to  the  imagination  of  our  readers.  And,  sixthly,  he  for- 
gets, or  overshoots  while  remembering,  the  fact,  that  he  is 
talking  of  the  aim  of  the  two  systems,  and  not  at  this  point 
of  their  actual  results.  To  make  man  better  may  not  be  so 
practicable  as  to  improve  the  strops  of  his  razors,  but  surely 
even  at  the  first  blush  it  is  a  loftier  attempt. 

But,  according  to  Macaulay,  contradicting  old  Seneca,  "  the 
first  shoemaker  was  a  greater  philosopher  than  Seneca  him- 
self." Had  he  said  the  "  first  maker  of  a  foot,"  he  would  have 
been  nearer  the  mark.  Neither  Seneca  nor  the  aboriginal 
shoemaker  strikes  us  as  a  very  wonderful  philosopher.  Both 
only  shaped  out  the  ideal  of  greater  artists,  the  one  imperfect- 
ly that  of  the  Plato,  the  Pythagoras,  and  the  Zeno,  who  saw 
the  vast  superiority  of  the  soul  to  the  body,  of  the  next  lifo 
to  this,  and  the  other  of  that  plastic  power,  which,  in  forming 
a  foot,  silently  bade  man,  while  he  covered  its  nakedness,  to 
emulate  its  symmetry  and  copy  its  curve.  But  dare  Macaulay 


254  MODERN    CRITICS. 


expect  sympathy,  when  denying  Seneca's  assertion  that  "  phi- 
losophy lies  deeper  than  inventing  transparent  windows,  tubes 
for  diffusing  warmth,  or  shorthand  ?"  Judging  by  this  state- 
ment, we  should  prefer  Seneca  as  an  expounder  of  the  ideal 
philosophy,  to  Macaulay  as  an  illustrator  of  the  utilitarian. 
We  are  certain  that  the  "  three  books  on  Anger,"  contain  no- 
thing so  contemptible  as  the  preference  he  gives,  by  implica- 
tion, to  "  the  man  who  teaches  us  to  use  our  hands,"  over 
him  "  whose  object  is  to  form  our  souls."  Not  in  the  pages 
of  Combe,  or  Robert  Chambers,  or  of  that  Benthamite  school 
which  Macaulay  himself  once  assaulted,  do  we  remember  any- 
thing so  grossly  absurd,  or  which  more  helplessly  sacrifices  the 
unhappy  cause  committed  to  his  advocacy. 

What !  a  shorthand  writer  equal  to  a  philosopher  or  a  great 
orator — Woodfall  above  Burke,  Grurney  above  Canning,  or 
Macaulay  seated  at  Highgate,  and  drinking  in  Coleridge's  in- 
spired accents,  equal  to  the  "  old  man  eloquent."  And  yet, 
such  abject  trash,  when  printed  in  the  "  Edinburgh  Review," 
or  re-published  by  the  "  Historian  of  England,"  must  gain  un- 
challenged acceptance,  and  require  this  humble  pen  to  dash  it 
into  exposure  and  contempt. 

In  the  paragraph  which  follows,  he  throws  out  insinuations 
against  Seneca's  character,  which  require  only  two  remarks. 
First,  Seneca  is  no  more  to  be  taken  as  a  fair  type  of  the  Pla- 
tonic philosophy,  than  Emerson  of  the  system  of  Fichte,  or 
Combe  of  Benehamism.  He  was  the  hard  dreg  of  a  Stoic,  and 
the  Stoic  was  only  the  stony  similitude  of  a  Platonist.  And, 
secondly,  should  we  accept  this  test  of  character  in  judging  of 
Seneca's  system,  what  is  there  to  prevent  us  from  applying  it 
to  Bacon's,  upon  the  premises  Macaulay  has  newly  laid  down, 
namely,  that  Bacon,  if  he  did  not,  like  Seneca,  "  meditate 
epigrammatic  conceits  about  the  evils  of  luxury  in  gardens, 
which  moved  the  envy  of  sovereigns,  rant  about  liberty,  while 
fawning  on  the  insolent  and  pampered  freemen  of  a  tyrant,  nor 
celebrate  the  divine  beauty  of  virtue  with  the  same  pen  which 
had  just  before  written  a  defence  of  the  murder  of  a  mother 
by  a  son" — nevertheless  did,  and  that,  too,  under  the  light  of 
Christianity  in  its  full  blaze,  take  bribes  for  justice,  till  cor- 
ruption's own  brazen  brow  grew  pale,  and  her  iron  hand  trem- 
bled ;  suffer  the  profligate  minion  of  a  monarch  to  influence 


THOMAS    MACAULAY.  255 


his  most  solemn  judicial  •  decisions  ;  pervert  the  old  laws  of 
England  to  the  vilest  purposes  of  tyranny,  by  "  tampering 
with  judges,  and  torturing  a  prisoner,"  who,  like  the  laws, 
was  venerable,  innocent,  and  old — and,  lastly,  become  the  be- 
trayer, and  the  public,  voluntary,  and  malignant  accuser,  of 
his  own  principal  friend  and  patron  ?  It  is  from  his  hand, 
be  sure,  and  not  from  Seneca's,  that  our  author  would  expect 
the  key  of  nature.  The  two  succeeding  paragraphs  contain  a 
caricature  of  the  objects  and  results  of  ancient  philosophy,  and 
their  sting  might  easily  be  extended  to  all  metaphysics,  and 
to  all  theology.  Mr.  Macaulay  forgets  what  he  had  so  recent- 
ly stated,  that  one  object  of  academical  studies  is  to  elevate 
and  purify  the  soul — a  purpose  independent  o/  objective  re- 
sults :  he  forgets  that  the  fruit  sought  being  of  the  rarest  kind, 
and  hanging  on  the  topmost  branches  of  the  tree  of  knowledge, 
cannot  be  gathered  without  long  labor,  and  that  the  main- 
tenance of  a  lofty  spiritualism,  of  an  attitude  of  wonder  and 
worship  among  the  better  minds  of  every  succeeding  age,  is  a 
richer  result  than  all  the  possible  discoveries  made  under  the 
Baconian  method.  Who  would  set  the  history  of  patents  above 
that  of  opinions  ?  Because  theologic  science  has  not  unrid- 
dled the  mystery  of  a  God,  or  explained  the  conditions  or  the 
localities  of  the  future  life,  must  the  truths  involved  in  such 
speculations,  and  the  influences  their  agitation  has  exerted  on 
the  spiritual  nature  of  man,  be  degraded  in  practical  power 
below  gas,  the  steam-engine,  or  the  diving-bell  ?  Are  churches, 
missionary  societies,  great  religious  movements,  high  spiritual 
poems,  and  holy  lives,  not  worth  "  fruit"  ? — and  these,  under 
God,  we  in  this  nineteenth  century  owe,  not  to  the  school  of 
Bacon,  but  to  that  combination  of  the  philosophy  of  Plato, 
and  the  divine  teaching  and  working  of  Jesus,  which  consti- 
tutes the  only  theology,  whether  theoretic  or  practical,  de- 
serving the  name — the  theology  of  Taylor,  Howe,  Milton,  and 
Coleridge. 

The  Baconian  philosophy  bears  flowers  and  fruits  in  great 
abundance  —  and  every  year ;  but  the  deep  thought  of  the 
ancient  Greek  mind,  informed  and  warmed  by  the  supernatu- 
ral Sun  of  Christianity,  like  the  aloe,  brings  forth,  at  long 
intervals,  its  precious  blossoms,  of  which  you  may  say  with 
the  poet — when  you  contrast  them  with  more  short-lived  and 


256  MODERN    CRITICS. 


earthy  productions — "one  blossom  of  Eden  outblooms  them 
all,"  and  the  fruit  of  which  is  everlasting.  For  why  ?  Bacon 
sowed  the  thin  soil  of  the  finite  and  the  present ;  Plato,  the 
deep  loam  of  the  permanent  and  the  infinite.  Bacon  expected 
and  received  the  return  of  an  early  crop  of  material  results ; 
Plato's  harvest  lay  in  the  slow  yield  of  souls.  "  Now  the 
things  seen  are  temporal,  but  the  things  unseen  are  eternal." 

Macaulay  next  expresses  a  disappointed  hope  in  the  "  Epi- 
cureans." They  were,  according  to  him,  mutilated  utilita- 
rians. It  was  even  wonderful  that  "  Epicurus'  style  did  not 
breed  a  Bacon."  They  approached  the  true  and  sensible 
notion  of  things,  in  "  referring  all  happiness  to  bodily  plea- 
sure, and  all  evil  to  bodily  pain."  But,  like  the  gods  in 
whom  they  were  said  to  believe,  they  were  lazy,  and  preferred 
lolling  in  the  sun  to  constructing  Novum  Organons.  Our 
notion  of  their  sense  is  increased  by  this.  If  all  happiness 
lies  in  bodily  pleasure,  and  all  evil  in  bodily  pain,  it  may  be  a 
question  if  it  be  not  our  "  strength  to  sit  still"  to  take  the 
good  the  gods  provide  us,  or  to  drink  our  hemlock  in  silence, 
instead  of  moving  heaven  and  earth,  and  convulsing  the 
spheres,  in  order  to  wheel  round  to  our  feet  new  varieties  of 
the  same  mixed  and  eternal  meal.  It  was  reserved  for  Macau- 
lay  to  trace  the  proud  Baconian  Tree,  which  some  compare  to 
the  Tree  of  Life,  with  its  "  many  manner  of  fruits,  and  its 
leaves  for  the  healing  of  the  nations,"  to  a  rejected  acorn  from 
the  trough  of  Epicurus. 

That  an  infection  of  despondency  seemed  to  lie  upon  other 
shapes  of  the  Grecian  philosophy  besides  the  Epicurean,  is 
granted  to  their  detractor.  But  he  has  not  pointed  out  the 
element  which  would  have  dissipated  this  gloom.  That  was 
Christianity,  with  its  supernatural  discoveries  of  the  immor- 
tality of  man — of  his  intimate  relations  to  God — and  of  the 
God-Man  Mediator.  The  ancient  philosophers  saw  the  neces- 
sities and  cravings  of  man's  immortal  nature ;  they  felt  that 
to  seek  to  supply  these  by  temporal  comforts  were  as  insulting 
and  absurd  as  to  give  rich  food  to  a  raging  fever ;  they  felt, 
some  of  them,  that  one  great  want  of  man  was  an  Incarnation 
of  the  Godhead,  and  they  had  even  a  hope  of  his  appearance 
— saw  in  some  measure  his  "  day  afar  off,  and  were  glad,"  but 
it  was  only  a  dim  prospect,  after  all,  and  they  lived  not  to  see 


THOMAS    MACAULAY.  257 


the  culmination  of  their  systems,  and  the  completion  of  their 
desires,  in  the  divine  Carpenter  of  Nazareth.  Hence,  their 
systems  have  an  imperfect  aspect — like  the  Sphinx  or  the 
Tower  of  Babel — and,  because  only  half  finished,  have  been 
treated  as  ruins.  But  to  call  their  despondency  "  contented" 
is  unjust.  If  they  sought  moral  perfection,  and  sought  it 
sincerely,  but  found  it  not,  how  could  they  remain  contented  ? 
Is  even  the  maniac  who  tries  to  leap  to  the  moon  contented 
with  his  fall  ?  On  the  contrary,  the  Baconian  philosophy 
having  made  its  bow  to  Christianity,  and  derived  from  it 
something  of  its  liberal  and  unfettered  spirit,  has  too  often 
proceeded  in  its  investigations  to  ignore  its  existence,  or  to 
treat  its  occasional  protests  with  impatient  scorn. 

It  is  easy  to  enlarge  on  the  errors  of  the  schoolmen.  But 
to  charge  these  upon  the  ancient  philosophers  is  as  unfair  as 
to  confound  Popery  with  Christianity.  Scholasticism  was  the 
putrefaction  of  the  old  philosophy — deriving  a  two-fold  viru- 
lence from  the  coeval  putrefaction  of  religion,  or  it  might  be 
termed  the  dotage  and  driveldom  of  the  Grecian  philosophy. 
But,  though  doomed  to  dote,  that  glorious  thing  was  not  doomed 
to  die.  In  spite  of  Macaulay's  paean  over  its  fall,  it  is  alive 
and  in  full  vigor  still,  and,  surviving  Bacon's  system,  may 
merge,  like  the  Morning  Star,  only  in  the  Sun  of  that  divine 
vision  which  we,  according  to  His  promise,  expect  sooner  or 
later  to  irradiate  the  evening  of  the  world. 

Mr.  Macaulay,  after  comparing  Bacon  to  Bonaparte — a 
comparison  with  two  edges — proceeds  to  make  the  following 
extraordinary  statement : — "  The  object  of  the  new  philosophy 
was  the  good  of  mankind,  in  the  sense  in  which  the  mass  of 
mankind  always  understood,  and  will  always  understand,  the 
word  good."  Surely  this  gentleman  was  born  to  be  a  fatal 
friend  to  the  fame  of  the  Baconian  system.  What  has  been 
the  object  or  "  good"  always  hitherto  sought  or  contemplated 
by  the  mass  of  mankind  ?  Has  it  not  been  selfish  gratification, 
in  one  or  other  of  its  myriad  forms  ?  Alas !  for  Bacon  and 
his  philosophy,  if  this  was  their  object  too  !  And  alas  !  for 
man,  if  he  is  never  to  rise  to  a  higher  purpose ;  and  if  the 
Baconian  philosophy  be  merely  a  devil's  wind  to  fan  the  sails 
of  human  selfishness  to  the  end  of  time  !  Indeed,  we  are  now 
at  this  point  tempted  to  ask,  if  Mr.  Macaulay  be  not,  after 


258  MODERN    CHITICS. 


all,  conducting  a  long,  insidious,  and  ironical  argument  against 
Bacon's  idea  and  method,  after  he  had,  in  a  former  part  of  the 
paper,  triumphantly  demolished  and  trampled  on  his  personal 
character.  We  defy  the  bitterest  opponent  of  our  English 
sage  to  utter  a  severer  sentence  against  his  system  than  has 
his  eloquent  and  seemingly  sincere  eulogist.  Poor  Bacon  ! 
has  he  not  fared  like  a  man  who  should  sit  down  to  have  his 
features  copied  by  an  artist  apparently  friendly,  and  should 
continue  to  smile,  well  pleased,  while  on  the  other  side  of  the 
canvas  there  was  rising,  to  the  tune  of  smothered  laughter, 
the  most  hideous  of  caricatures  ? 

But  this  suspicion — which  would  save  the  intellect  at  the 
expense  of  the  honesty  of  the  writer — fades  away  and  becomes 
incredible,  as  we  follow  him  a  little  farther.  He  goes  on  to 
contrast  the  estimates  Plato  and  Bacon  have  respectively 
formed  of  the  different  branches  of  knowledge.  Plato  thought 
that  the  "  great  office  of  geometry  was  to  discipline  the  mind, 
not  to  minister  to  the  base  wants  of  the  body."  Macaulay. 
on  the  other  hand,  sneers  at  "  the  abstract,  essential,  eternal 
truths"  of  this  science,  but  passes  over  the  great  objection  to 
its  study,  which  is,  that  men  accustomed  to  mathematical  evi- 
dence become  often  incapable  of  appreciating  or  receiving  any 
other.  There  is  a  mist  around  the  region  of  mathematics 
colder  and  denser  than  that  of  metaphysics  ;  and  he  who  finds 
the  darkness  of  problems  clear,  will  by  and  by  wink  and  be 
struck  blind  by  the  blaze  of  day.  But  surely  the  idea  of 
mathematics  propounded  by  Plato  is  far  loftier  than  the  other 
— unless  Meyer  on  "  Mensuration5*  can  be  compared  to  New- 
ton's "  Principia." 

In  talking  of  their  estimates  of  astronomy,  Macaulay  grants 
that  both  agree  in  condemning  the  astronomy  which  then  ex- 
isted, and  in  desiderating  a  higher  and  purer ;  but,  strange  to 
say,  he  prefers  Bacon's  "  living  astronomy" — which  seems  to 
have  been  nothing  else  than  astrology — to  Plato's,  which  was 
a  fine  and  large  idealism.  Bacon  aspired  to  know  the  "  nature 
and  the  influences  of  the  heavenly  bodies  as  they  really  are;" 
Plata,  so  attain  to  an  astronomy  to  which  the  "  stars  are  like 
the  figures  which  a  geometrician  draws  on  the  sand — an  astro- 
nomy '  independent  of  the  stars.'  "  Suppose  either  of  these 
imaginary  astronomies  attainable,  which  of  the  two,  we  ask, 


THOMAS  MACAULAY.  250 


were  the  nobler  ?  Suppose  both  visionary,  which  vision  is  the 
grander  of  the  two  ?  Our  common  astronomy  may  be  com- 
pared to  a  measurement  of  the  dimensions  of  the  human  brain; 
Bacon's  to  a  knowledge  of  its  relations  to  the  body  and  the 
nervous  system  ;  and  Plato's  to  the  study  of  the  mind,  of 
which  the  brain  is  but  the  organ.  The  stars  may  be  called 
the  developments  of  "  God's  Own  Head :"  our  common  astro- 
nomers number  them,  and  take  their  weights  and  sizes ;  Bacon 
wishes  to  know  how  they  are  connected  with  our  evcry-day  life 
and  fortunes;  Plato,  to  read  the  divine  idea — the  large  thought 
and  purpose  of  God — inscribed  on  them  in  legible  tire. 

It  seems  to  us  that  in  this  science  we  are  fast  approaching 
a  point  where  we  need  the  guidance  rather  of  a  new  Plato 
than  of  a  new  Bacon  or  Newton.  The  telescope  of  Lord 
Rosse  has  sounded  our  present  astronomy  to  its  real  depths. 
Few  more  great  prizes  are  reserved,  we  suspect,  in  that  starry 
sea.  We  have  attained  the  knowledge  that  the  stars  are  old, 
that  they  are  of  one  stuff,  and  that  there  is  no  visible  end  to 
their  numbers.  What  more  of  any  moment,  in  this  direction, 
by  our  present  methods,  is  ever  likely  to  be  reached  by  us  ? 
It  is  like  walking  through  a  pine  forest  of  vast  extent  and  uni- 
form aspect ;  a  few  miles  tire  and  satisfy  us.  So  now,  the 
news  of  "  stars,  stars,  stars,"  pouring  on  us  in  everlasting  suc- 
cession— all  like  each  other,  all  distant,  all  inscrutable,  and 
ever  silent,  the  moral  history  of  all  unknown — produces  very 
little  effect,  and  the  midnight  heavens  of  modern  astronomy 
become  again,  as  to  the  eye  of  childhood,  a  mighty  and  terri- 
ble pageant  or  procession^  the  meaning  and  the  purpose,  the 
whither  and  the  whence,  of  which  we  do  not  understand.  And 
we  are  tempted  to  say  to  astronomers,  as  they  prate  of  their 
new  firmaments,  and  planets,  and  comets,  "  We  know  some- 
thing like  this  long  ago ;  can  ye  not  give  us  some  light  on  the 
meaning  of  these  distant  orbs,  or  read  us  off  some  worthy 
lessons  of  moral  interest  from  that  ever-widening  but  never- 
clearing  page  ?"  And  to  cry  out  to  the  stars,  "  Speak  as  well 
as  shine,  ye  glorious  mutes  in  the  halls  of  heaven  !  Shed 
down  on  some  selected  and  favored  ear  the  true  meaning  of 
your  mystic  harmonies  !  Hieroglyphics,  traced  by  the  finger 
of  God  on  the  walls  of  night,  when  shall  the  Daniel  arrive  to 
interpret  you,  and  to  tell  us  whether  ye  contain  tidings  of  hope 


260  MODERN    CRITICS. 


or  of  despair?  Star-gazers  have  looked  at  you  long  enough, 
and  mathematicians  weighed  and  measured  you ;  when  shall 
the  eye — the  llossian  eye  of  a  true  seer — lift  itself  up  to  your 
contemplation,  and  extract  the  heart  of  your  mystery  ?  If 
not,  men  may  soon  turn  away  from  you  in  disappointment, 
and  look  with  as  much  hope  on  the  bright  foam-bells  of  an  au- 
tumn ocean  as  on  you,  the  froth  of  immensity." 

Plato's  opinions  on  medicine  are  next  brought  forward 
against  him ;  and  yet  in  nothing  do  we  perceive  greater  proof 
of  his  profound  sagacity.  True,  he  pushes  his  views  to  ex- 
cess; but  under  the  veil  of  his  extravagant  statements  we  see 
an  idea  which  is  gaining  ground,  and  shall  yet  become  univer- 
sal— that  medicine,  as  it  began  in,  shall  return  to,  surgery  ; 
that,  as  a  barber  was  the  first,  he  shall  be  the  last  physician ; 
that  in  a  body,  as  well  as  in  a  mind  diseased,  the  patient  best 
ministers  to  himself;  that  the  words,  "  Physician,  heal  thy- 
self," may  be  freely  rendered,  "  Cure  thee  of  quackery  by 
ceasing  to  be  a  physician  at  all;"  and  that  nature,  strong  in 
her  own  resources,  coincides  with  Plato  in  crying  out,  "  Throw 
physic  to  the  dogs  ;  I'll  none  of  it."  This  belief,  having  sent 
on  before  it  its  imperfect  forerunners,  of  Homoeopathy  and 
Hydropathy,  is  following  them  in  full  force,  and  in  a  higher 
form,  and  threatens  soon  to  turn  out  of  doors  the  "  Royal 
Academy  of  Physicians,"  to  celebrate  a  universal  jubilee — il- 
lumination at  the  death  of  quackery — and  to  burn  drugs,  like 
demons,  in  a  blaze  of  consuming  fire.  Honor  to  old  Plato  for 
having,  by  one  glance  of  his  eye,  seen  the  quackery  of  ages 
through  and  doivn  to  its  doing  day. 

Grasping  always  at  the  ideals  of  things,  Plato  saw  that  all 
true  legislation  must  propound  to  itself  a  lofty  end,  and  he 
proclaims  that  end  to  be  the  "  virtue  of  the  subject."  This 
was  the  thought  of  Moses  too,  and  the  theocracy  of  Israel 
was  its  accomplishment.  It  were  easy  to  prove  that  it  was 
also  the  idea  of  Christ,  although  its  realisation  was  deferred, 
and  he  did  not  at  that  time  restore  the  kingdom  to  Israel.  It 
is  certainly  the  idea  of  Millennial  Christianity  ;  but  Mr.  Mac- 
aulay  scouts  it  as  Utopian,  and  prefers  the  line  of  legislation 
recommended  by  Bacon,  and,  alas  !  acted  on  by  the  majority 
of  human  governors,  which  has  for  its  watchword  the  low 
word  "  well-leing;"  which  acknowledges  no  virtues  but  indus- 


THOMAS    MACAULAY.  261 


try  and  submission,  and  no  G-od  but  Mammon;  which  is  care- 
ful to  regulate  and  derive  revenue  from  stews,  but  never  inter- 
meddles with  the  education  of  souls  ;  which  tolerates  every 
species  of  corruption  so  long  as  it  is  profitable,  and  the  money 
derived  from  it  does  not  smell ;  which  washes  the  outside  of 
the  platter,  whitens  the  sepulchre,  and  decks  the  corpse,  but 
neglects  the  weightier  matters  of  the  law — judgment,  mercy, 
and  faith;  and  seeks  (not  in  vain)  to  divorce  human  legisla- 
tion from  Eternal  Justice.  Let  the  praises  of  Baconian  legis- 
lation be  sung  by  mightier  voices  than  ours — by  the  whirl- 
winds of  anarchy,  the  blood-red  trumpets  of  revolution,  the 
cries  of  tormented  and  fugitive  slaves,  and  by  that  crash  of 
all-existing  governments,  which  may  form  the  first  thunder- 
step  of  Him  who  is  to  come,  and  who,  in  pronouncing  doom 
against  them  may  make  this  the  conclusive  charge :  "  Ye 
did  not  make  it  the  principal  end  of  your  legislation  to  make 
men  virtuous ;  ye  turned  my  father's  house  into  a  house  of 
merchandise,  nay,  a  den  of  thieves ;  and  ye  must  be  scourged 
— hence  /" 

An  antithetical  comparison  is  introduced  between  the  phi- 
losophy of  Plato  and  that  of  Bacon,  which,  as  it  is  short,  we 
may  quote : — "  The  aim  of  the  Platonic  philosophy  was  to 
exalt  man  into  a  God;  the  aim  of  the  Baconian  philosophy 
was  to  provide  man  with  what  he  requires  while  he  continues 
to  be  man.  The  aim  of  the  Platonic  philosophy  was  to  raise 
us  far  above  vulgar  wants  ;  the  aim  of  the  Baconian  philoso- 
phy was  to  supply  our  vulgar  wants.  The  former  aim  was 
noble ;  but  the  latter  was  attainable.  Plato  drew  a  good 
bow  ;  but,  like  Acestes  in  '  Virgil,"  he  aimed  at  the  stars,  and, 
therefore,  though  there  was  no  want  of  strength  or  skill,  the 
shot  was  thrown  away.  His  arrow  was  indeed  followed  by  a 
track  of  dazzling  radiance,  but  it  struck  nothing.  Bacon  fix- 
ed his  eye  on  a  mark  which  was  placed  on  the  earth,  and  with- 
in bow-shot,  and  he  hit  it  in  the  white.  The  philosophy  of 
Plato  began  in  words,  and  ended  in  words  ;  the  philosophy  of 
Bacon  began  in  observations,  and  ended  in  arts." 

Let  us  try  a  parallel  on  the  other  side  of  the  question, 
which,  if  not  so  pointed,  is  much  more  true.  The  aim  of  the 
Baconian  philosophy  was  to  make  the  dungeon  of  man's  irre- 
coverable captivity  as  comfortable  as  possible,  to  ventilate  it 


262  MODERN    CRITICS. 


well,  to  loose  everything  except  the  chains,  to  cleanse  the 
floors,  clear  the  windows  of  cobwebs,  and  to  whisper  the  while 
to  the  bondage,  Esto  perpetua ;  that  of  the  Platonic  was  to 
set  the  lawful  but  hopeful  prisoner  free.  The  aim  of  the  Ba- 
conian philosophy  was  to  cherish,  expand,  and  cultivate  the 
animal  and  intellectual  nature  of  man ;  that  of  the  Platonic 
was  to  strengthen  and  purify  the  spiritual,  which  is  the  germ 
of  the  Godhead  in  humanity.  The  aim  of  the  Baconian  phi- 
losophy was  to  "  supply  man's  vulgar  wants,"  and  leave  him 
content  as  a  sated  sloth  with  the  supply;  that  of  Plato  was 
to  suggest  the  thrilling  thought,  that  there  are  instincts  and 
wants  in  man  which  earth  and  time  cannot  satisfy,  and  which, 
with  their  silent  uplifted  fingers,  point  to  immortality. 

The  aim  of  the  Baconian  philosophy  was,  even  if  attainable, 
not  very  noble — but  attainable  it  was  not,  since  the  sensuous, 
as  well  as  the  spiritual,  nature  of  man  continually  cries,  "  Give, 
give."  Bacon's  system,  although  it  had  a  "  New  Atlantis," 
had  no  "Mahometan  Paradise"  annexed  to  it;  the  aim  of 
Plato,  partaking  of  the  eternal,  demands  the  field  of  the  future 
for  its  development,  and  disdains  the  petty  geographical 
gauges  by  which  it  has  been  hitherto  tried.  Plato  "  aimed  at 
the  sun,"  like  Hercules  of  old ;  but  Macaulay  has  not,  with 
all  his  "  thunder,"  broken  the  "  shaft,"  which  is  still  traveling 
upwards  with  unabated  speed  in  the  heaven-sent  breeze  of 
Christianity,  and  shall  hit  that  far  "  White"  in  due  time.  Ba- 
con's arrow  has  not  pierced  entirely  through  even  his  broad 
targe — this  world.  The  "  philosophy  of  Bacon  began  in  ob- 
servations and  ended  in  arts;"  Plato's  began  in  instincts,  and 
shall  end  in  a  Daedalean  crop  of  men. 

Macaulay  comes,  in  fine,  to  the  question  on  which  he  lays 
most  stress — that  of  the  results  of  the  two  philosophies.  On 
this  point  we  have  touched  already,  but  must  be  permitted 
another  word.  Now,  that  many  and  wonderful  results  have 
sprung  from  the  pursuit  of  the  Baconian  plan  of  philosophis- 
ing, is  conceded  at  once.  But  are  they,  after  all,  equal  to  the 
panegyrics  bestowed  on  them  ?  Are  they  not  principally 
mechanical  ?  Have  they  made  man,  as  a  whole,  much  hap- 
pier, wiser,  or  better  ?  What  is  "  morality,"  or  "  moral 
obligation,"  without  "grounds" — and  Bacon  has,  according  to 
Macaulay,  laid  down  no  such  grounds.  He  says,  "  he  loved 


THOMAS    MACAULAY.  263 


to  dwell  on  the  power  of  the  Christian  religion,  to  effect  much 
that  the  ancient  philosophers  only  promised."  This  might 
have  been  only  a  compliment ;  and  how  easy  it  were  to  turn 
round  and  to  say,  "  the  objections  to  the  ancient  philosophy 
you  urge,  may  be  urged,  with  equal  force,  against  the  Chris- 
tian faith — where  do  we  find  the  moral  perfection  at  which  it 
aimed? — where  the  faultless  men  it  sought  to  produce  ? — has 
it  not  been  a  sublime  failure  ?"  And  so  we  grant  it  has  ;  un- 
less you  admit  the  facts  of  a  great  future,  to  which  it  points, 
and  of  a  supernatural  intervention,  which  it  promises.  And 
what  we  demand  for  Christianity,  we  demand  also  for  the 
Platonic  philosophy.  Like  it,  it  has  done  much,  but  not 
hitherto  in  proportion  to  the  infinite  scale  it  has  itself  fixed. 
Yet  we  are  willing  to  weigh  even  its  present  products  against 
Macaulay's  elaborate  list  of  the  results  of  the  Baconian  me- 
thod. "  That  has  lengthened  life"  (Macaulay  hopes,  we  sup- 
pose, to  live  longer  than  Methuselah !),  "  mitigated  pain" 
(Christianity  has  no  solace  in  it  equal  to  chloroform  !),  "  ex- 
tinguished diseases"  (by  creating  new  ones),  "  increased  the 
fertility  of  the  soil"  (to  the  benefit  of  the  serf,  eh  ?),  "  given 
new  securities  to  the  mariner"  (the  polar  star  shone  and  the 
needle  trembled  before  Bacon  was  born),  "  furnished  new 
arms  to  the  warrior"  (is  this  a  service  to  the  human  race  ? 
must  the  name  of  Bacon  be  written  in  blood  ?),  "  spanned 
great  rivers  and  estuaries  with  bridges  of  form  unknown  to 
our  fathers"  (what  an  achievement !  the  rainbow  is  nothing  to 
it !),  "  guided  the  thunderbolt  innocuously  from  heaven  to 
earth"  (shall  we  never  hear  the  last  of  that  poor,  tattered, 
tell-little  kite  of  Franklin's,  the  Elijah's  mantle  of  modern 
philosophers  ?),  "  lighted  up  the  night  with  the  splendor  of 
the  day"  (was  it  not  so  also  in  the  halls  of  Persepolis  and  the 
palaces  of  Babylon,  or  is  all  the  glory  of  night  included  in 
gas  ?),  "  extended  the  range  of  the  human  vision,  accelerated 
motion,  annihilated  distance,  facilitated  intercourse,  enabled 
man  to  descend  into  the  sea,  soar  into  the  air,  penetrate  into 
the  noxious  recesses  of  the  earth,  traverse  the  land  in  cars 
without  horses;"  and  so  on  he  goes,  like  the  hack  orator  at  a 
Watt  or  Mechanics'  Institute,  through  the  wearisome  round 
of  railways,  diving-bells,  baloons,  safety  lamps,  &c.  Splendid 
toys,  truly  !  Childish  things,  fitting  our  present  state  of  ad- 


264  MODERN    CRITICS. 


vaucement.  Nay,  rather,  conductors,  laid  out  and  waiting  for 
the  electric  influences  of  a  better  era.  But  to  speak  of  them 
as  ends,  as  objects,  as  living  things,  as  aught  but  dead  trifles, 
till  the  shadow  of  the  divine  be  made  to  fall  on  them>  and  the 
power  of  the  divine  to  propel  them,  and  the  spirit  of  the  di- 
vine to  animate  them,  is  intolerable  from  one  pretending  to  be 
a  philosopher.  We  throw  into  the  scale  over  against  them 
the  highest  philosophy,  poetry,  and  theology  of  the  last  two 
centuries  in  Britain,  Germany,  and  America,  all  of  which  has 
been  colored  by  the  genius,  and  more  or  less  inspired  by  the 
spirit,  of  Plato,  and  also  the  deep  spiritual  effects  and  moral 
movements  which  have  sprung  from  these,  and  ask  which  is 
likely  to  kick  the  beam  ?  And,  if  it  be  said  that  we  are  un- 
fairly adding  Christianity  as  a  make-weight  to  Platonism,  we 
reply  that  the  one  is,  in  our  notion,  the  other  fulfilled — the 
other  Deified,  yet  practicalized  ;  and  that  we  have  a  right  to 
rate  the  system  we  defend  at  its  best. 

The  philosophy  of  Bacon  has  sounded  the  ocean,  but  it  has 
ignored  the  profo under  depth  of  the  infinite  in  the  soul  of 
man.  It  has  brought  down  the  lightnings  on  its  rod,  but  they 
have  come  reluctantly,  and  departed  as  much  a  mystery  as 
ever.  It  has  told  the  number,  but  not  the  meaning,  of  the 
stars,  which  roll  on  in  their  courses  as  inscrutable  to  us  as 
they  were  to  the  Chaldean  shepherds.  Treating  man  as  a 
cultivable  ape,  it  has  made  his  outward  condition  more  com- 
fortable ;  it  hurries  him  along  the  path  to  his  grave  on  rail- 
ways; it  smooths  the  harsh,  outward  edges  of  his  intercourse 
with  his  fellow-man,  but  it  leaves  his  heart  as  hard  as  it  found 
it ;  it  satisfies  not,  nor  tries  to  satisfy,  one  of  the  deep  thirsts 
of  his  moral  nature.  It  has  not  cast  a  gleam  of  light  upon 
the  dark  problems  of  his  being,  such  as  birth,  sin,  madness,  or 
death.  It  casts  not,  nor  seeks  to  cast,  a  ray  upon  the  life  be- 
yond ;  it  leaves  a  cloud  of  utter  darkness  upon  his  future  pro- 
gress on  earth,  and  it  neglects  the  care,  if  not  denies  the  ex- 
istence, of  that  immortal  instinct  which  points  up  the  poorest 
scion  of  humanity  to  his  Father  in  heaven.  It  is  of  the  earth, 
earthy ;  nor  is  that  earth  regarded  as  God's  footstool,  or  as 
the  springboard  from  which  undying  souls  are  to  take  their 
bound  upwards,  but  as  the  eternal  womb,  homestead,  and 
of  certain  erect  compositions  of  clay,  made,  worked,  and 


TttOMAS    MACAULAY.  205 

at  last  buried  in  night,  by  a  mere  mechanical  power.  Should* 
once  more  the  Baconian  appeal  to  the  "  Great  Exhibition," 
and  say,  "  Behold  the  triumph  of  my  principles  there,"  we 
answer— the  splendor  of  the  instance  is  granted  ;  we  saw  there 
'*  the  kingdoms  of  the  world,  and  the  glory  of  them,  in  a  mo- 
ment of  time  ;M  but  not  for  the  gift,  instead  of  the  sight,  of 
all  this  magnificence,  would  we  bend  down  before  the  golden 
calf.  That  exhibition  was,  after  all,  an  exhibition  of  the  works 
of  man's  industry  ;  if  we  would  see  the  works  of  God's  indus- 
try, we  must  look  elsewhere — to  those  books  which  his  Spirit 
has  inspired,  and  to  those  men  who  bear  his  image,  and  fight 
his  battles.  Millions  flocked  to  see  this  great  sight ;  but  there 
are  sentences  in  Plato,  and  far  more  in  John,  one  of  which  is 
worth  the  whole  magnificent  medley.  And  yet,  were  a  new 
truth  of  still  more  compact  significance  and  grandeur,  from 
the  same  source,  inscribed  upon  a  pillar,  and  the  existence  of 
that  pillar  announced  to  the  ends  of  the  earth,  how  few  would 
travel  to  read  the  same.  So  it  is,  but  so  it  shall  not  always 
be.  Nay,  it  appears  to  us  that  the  Great  Exhibition  brought 
the  Baconian  system  to  a  point ;  it  produced  all  that  it  could 
do  for  humanity— and  may  not  this  bright  pinnacle  of  human 
deed  and  skill  have  shone  across  the  gulf,  as  a  signal  to  the 
superior  and  supernatural  power,  seeing  in  it  man's  splendid 
impotence,  and  gilded  wo,  to  take  his  case,  and  the  remainder 
of  his  otherwise  hopeless  destiny,  by  and  by,  into  his  own  all- 
wise,  powerful,  and  merciful  hands  ?  The  cry  of  Plato  was 
for  an  avatar,  and  a  fuller  revelation  of  the  Deity.  That  was 
fulfilled  in  Christianity,  but  Christianity,  in  unison  with  crea- 
tion, is  beginning  to  cry  aloud,  in  her  turn,  for  a  farther  and 
a  final  apotheosis.  The  words  of  John  Foster  are  seldom  to 
be  despised,  and  let  both  Baconian  and  Platonic  Christian  hear 
him  with  attention,  as  he  says,  "  Religion  is  utterly  incompe- 
tent to  reform  the  world,  till  it  is  armed  with  some  new  and 
most  mighty  powers — till  it  appears  in  a  new  and  la&t  dispen- 
sation." 

Our  space  is  exhausted,  else  we  would  have  had  rich  pick- 
ings of  absurdity  and  weakness  in  the  closing  parts  of  Macau- 

*  This  was  written  when  the  Great  Exhibition  was  going  on  in  Lon- 
don. 

10 


266  MODERN    CRITICS. 


lay's  Essay — where,  for  instance,  he  tells  us  gravely,  "  thai 
the  knowledge  of  the  theory  of  logic  has  no  tendency  to  make 
men  good  reasoners,"  an  assertion  equivalent  to  "  the  knowl- 
edge of  the  theory  of  grammar  has  110  tendency  to  make  men 
good  grammarians,"  or,  "  a  man  may  be  a  very  good  French 
scholar,  without  studying  French;"  or  where  he  reduces  Ba- 
con's claims  to  absolute  zero,  by  telling  us  that  his  "  rules  are 
not  wanted,  because,  in  truth,  they  only  tell  us  to  do  what  we 
are  all  doing ;"  or  where,  closing  his  estimate  of  what  Bacon 
has  after  all  done,  he  calls  him  a  "  person  who  first  called  the 
public  attention  to  an  inexhaustible  mine  of  wealth,  which  had 
been  utterly  neglected,  and  was  accessible  by  that  road  alone, 
and  thus  caused  that  road  which  had  been  previously  trodden 
by  peasants  and  higglers"  (Platos  and  Aristotles  ?  nay,  Johns 
and  Pauls  ?),  "  to  be  frequented  by  a  higher  kind  of  travelers." 
By-ends  Bacon,  we  suppose,  Demas  Dumont,  Save-all  Joe 
Hume,  Hold-the- World  Bentham,  Young  Atheist  Holyoake, 
Feel-the-Skull  Combe,  and  My-Lord-Timeserver  Mr.  Ma- 
caulay. 


NO.  I— CARLTLE  AND  STERLING.* 

THIS  volume  has,  for  some  months  past,  been  expected,  with  a 
kind  of  fearful  curiosity,  by  the  literary  public.  As  for  the 
second  shock  of  an  earthquake — after  the  first  had  sucked  a 
street  into  its  jaws — so  had  men,  in  silence  and  terror,  been 
waiting  for  its  avatar.  Every  one  was  whispering  to  every 
other,  "  What  a  bombshell  is  about  to  fall  from  Thomas  Car- 
lyle's  battery!  Nothing  like  it,  we  fear,  since  the  'Model 
Prisons.'  Let  our  theologians  look  to  it !"  Well,  the  book 
has  come  at  last,  and,  notwithstanding  the  evil  animus  of  parts 
of  it,  a  milder,  more  tender,  and  more  pleasant  gossiping  little 
volume  we  have  not  read  for  many  a  day.  The  mountain  has 
been  in  labor,  and  lo  !  a  nice  lively  field-mouse,  quite  frisky 
and  good  humored,  has  been  brought  forth.  It  is  purely 
ridiculous  and  contemptible  to  speak,  with  some  of  our  con- 
temporaries, of  this  volume  as  Mr.  Carlyle's  best,  or  as,  in 
any  sense,  a  great  work.  The  subject,  as  he  has  viewed  it, 
was  not  great,  and  his  treatment  of  it,  while  exceedingly 
graceful  and  pleasant,  is  by  no  means  very  powerful  or  very 
profound. 

In  fact  we  look  on  it  as  a  clever  evasion  of  the  matter  in 
hand.  Why  were  the  public  so  deeply  interested  in  John 
Sterling?  Not  on  account  of  his  genius,  which  was  of  a  high, 
but  not  the  highest,  order,  and  was  not  at  all  familiar,  in  its 
fruits  at  least,  to  the  generality.  He  was  not  a  popular  au- 
thor. His  conversational  powers  and  private  virtues  were 

*  Life  of  John  Sterling.     By  THOMAS  CARLYLE. 


268  MISCELLANEOUS    SKETCHES. 


known  only  to  his  friends,  But  his  mind  had  passed  through 
certain  speculative  changes,  which  invested  him  with  a  pro- 
found and  rather  morbid  interest,  and  gave  him  a  typical  or 
representative  character.  He  had  been  in  youth  a  sceptic  of 
rather  an  ultra  school.  In  early  manhood  he  became  a  Cole- 
ridgean  Christian,  and  an  active  curate,  and  ere  he  died,  he 
relapsed  into  a  modified  and  refined  form  of  scepicism  again. 
This  constituted  the  real  charm  which  attracted  men  to  Ster- 
ling. This  was  the  circle  of  lurid  glory  which  bound  his  head, 
and  by  which  we  tracked  his  steps  through  his  devious  and 
dangerous  wanderings. 

But  of  all  this  there  is  far  too  little,  although,  in  another 
sense,  that  little  is  all  too  much.  Sterling's  private  story  is 
very  minutely  and  beautifully  detailed.  The  current  of  his 
literary  career  (a  river  flowing  under  ground  !)  is  as  carefully 
mapped  out  as  if  it  had  been  a  Nile  or  a  Ganges— a  broad 
blessing  to  nations.  But  over  the  struggles  of  his  inner  life, 
the  steps,  swift  or  slow,  by  which  he  passed  from  Radical  Ra- 
tionalism to  Christianity,  and  thence  to  Straussism  or  Carlyl- 
isrn,  there  is  cast  a  veil,  through  which  very  little  light, 
indeed,  is  allowed  to  glimmer.  To  show  how  unfair  and  unsatis- 
factory this  plan  of  treatment  is,  let  us  conceive  a  new  life  of 
Blanco  White,  in  which  all  his  changes  of  opinion  were  slurred 
over ;  or  a  life  of  Dr.  Arnold,  in  which  his  achievements  as  a 
schoolmaster  and  a  politician  were  faithfully  chronicled,  but 
the  religious  phases  of  his  history  were  ignored.  Now  Ster- 
ling's fame  is,  even  more  than  theirs,  based  on  his  reputation 
as  an  honest  and  agonised  inquirer,  and  it  is  too  bad  to  cloak 
up  the  particulars  of  those  earnest  researches  under  general 
terms,  and  to  give  us,  instead  of  the  information  for  which  we 
were  panting,  pictures  of  Welsh  or  West  Indian  scenery,  one 
or  two  vague  ravings  about  the  "  Bedlam  delusions"  of  our 
day,  and  the  "  immensities  and  eternities" — or  letters  so 
selected  or  so  garbled,  that  they  shall  cast  no  light  upon  the 
more  secret  and  interesting  passages  of  his  spiritual  history. 

The  gentleness  of  the  tone  of  the  work,  although  only  com- 
parative, is  an  agreeable  change  from  that  of  the  "  Latter-Day 
Pamphlets,"  the  language  of  which  was  frequently  as  coarse 
and  vulgar,  as  the  spirit  was  fierce,  and  the  views  one-sided. 
The  Indian  summer  is  often  preceded  by  a  short  but  severe 


CARLYLE  AND  STERLING.  269 


storm,  and,  perhaps,  is  softer  arid  more  golden  in  prof  ortion  to 
the  roughness  of  the  tempest.  Mr.  Carlyle,  here,  seems  abso- 
lutely in  love  !  Not  above  ten  sentences  of  vituperation  oc- 
cur in  the  344  pages.  We  suspect  that  the  reception  of  the 
"  Model  Prisons"  has  taught  him  that  even  his  dynasty  is  not 
infallible,  and  that  bulls  from  Chelsea  must  modify  their  bel- 
lowings,  if  they  would  not  wish  to  be  treated  like  bulls  from 
the  Vatican.  Whether  he  be  or  be  not  aware  of  the  fact,  his 
giant  shadow  is  passing  swiftly  from  off  the  face  of  the  public 
mind,  nor  will  the  present  change  of  tone  retard  its  down-going. 
It  is  too  late.  The  gospel  of  negations  has  had  its  day,  and 
served  its  generation,  and  must  give  place  to  another  and  a 
nobler  evangel. 

The  book  is  most  interesting  from  its  relation  to  the  biogra- 
pher, and  its  true  name  is  "  Sterling's  Carlyle."  Few  as  the 
religious  allusions  in  it  are,  they  are  such  as  leave  no  doubt 
upon  our  minds  as  to  Carlyle's  own  views.  His  sneers  at 
Coleridge's  theosophic  moonshine — at  Sterling's  belief  in  a 
u  personal  God :"  his  suppression  of  an  argument  on  this  sub- 
ject, drawn  out  by  Sterling  in  a  letter  to  himself  (page  152) — 
his  language  in  page  126,  "  no  stars — nor  ever  were,  save  cer- 
tain old  Jew  ones,  ^vh^ch  have  gone  out'1'1 — the  unmitigated 
contempt  he  pours  out  here  and  there  on  the  clergy,  and  on  the 
Church,  and,  by  inference  and  insinuation,  upon  the  "  tradi- 
tions" and  the  "incredibilities"  of  Christianity — all  point  to 
the  foregone  conclusion,  which  he  has,  we  fear,  long  ago 
reached.  With  this  conclusion  we  do  not  at  present  mean  to 
grapple;  but  we  mean  to  mark,  and  very  strongly  to  condemn, 
the  manner  and  spirit  in  which  he  has,  although  only  here  and 
there,  stated  and  enforced  it. 

Now,  in  the  first  place,  although  he  must  be  sceptical,  why 
should  he  be  profane  ?  He  may  curse,  but  why  should  he 
sioear  ?  He  may  despise  hypocrisy,  and  trample  on  cant,  but 
why  should  he  insult  sincere,  albeit  weak-minded  belief? 
Why  such  words  as  these,  in  reference  to  a  Methodist,  who 
had  displayed,  in  critical  circumstances,  a  most  heroic  and  no- 
ble degree  of  courage — "  The  last  time  I  heard  of  him,  he 
wag  a  prosperous,  modest  dairyman,  thankful  for  the  upper 
light,  arid  for  deliverance  from  the  warth  to  come  ?" 

Words  these,  "  wrath  to  come,"  which  shook  the  souls  of 


270  MISCELLANEOUS    SKETCHES. 


Cromwell,  Milton  and  Howe,  to  their  depths ;  which  arc  still 
capable  of  moving  millions  to  fear,  to  faith,  to  morality,  and 
to  love ;  and  which  yet  can  only  excite  Mr.  Carlyle  to  con- 
temptuous derision.  If  there  be  one  thought  in  the  Christian 
theology  more  tremendous  than  another,  it  is  that  of  an  un- 
ceasing outflow  of  just  vengeance,  like  a  "  pulsing  aurora  of 
wrath,"  like  an  ever-rising  sun  of  shame  and  fear,  like  a  storm, 
the  clouds  of  which  return  after  the  rain — not  to  be  com- 
pared to  other  wrathful  phenomena,  to  the  thunder-cloud 
which  gathers,  bursts,  passes  on  to  other  lands  or  to  other 
worlds,  while  the  blue  sky  arises  behind  it  in  its  calm  im- 
mortality ;  nor  to  the  pestilence,  which  breaks  out  like  the 
sudden  springing  of  a  mine,  stamps  with  its  foot,  and  awakens 
death,  but  passes  quickly  away,  and  leaves  the  joy  of  health 
and  security  behind;  nor  to  the  earthquake,  which  starts 
up  like  a  giant  from  his  slumber,  heaves  mountains,  troubles 
oceans,  swallows  up  cities,  but  speedily  subsides,  and  again 
the  eternal  hills  rest  and  are  silent ;  but  to  itself  only,  for 
it  alone  deserves  the  name  of  wrath !  And  without  dog- 
matising or  speculating  on  the  real  meaning  or  extent  of  this 
predicted  vengeance,  surely  a  sneer  can  neither  explain,  nor 
illuminate,  nor  prevent  its  coming !  There  are  many  besides 
poor  Methodistic  miners,  who  tremble  at  the  words,  "  It  is  a 
fearful  thing  to  fall  into  the  hands  of  the  living  God,"  and  one 
of  them,  unless  we  are  much  mistaken,  is,  at  times,  the  melan- 
choly Polyphemus  of  Chelsea. 

Secondly,  why  does  he  so  often  edge  his  evident  earnestness 
with  a  levity  and  a  mockery  which  remind  you  of  Voltaire 
himself?  Why  thus  delight  in  forming  an  ungainly  and  hor- 
rible hybrid  ?  Deep  solemn  thought  is  on  his  brow;  love  is 
swimming  wildly  in  his  eye;  but  a  sneer,  keen  as  if  it  were 
the  essence  of  all  sneers,  past,  present,  and  to  come,  ever  and 
anon  palpitates  on  his  lips.  Why  is  this  ?  Even  as  an  engine 
of  assault,  such  ridicule  is  powerless.  Laughter,  ere  it  can 
kill,  must  be  given  forth  with  all  one's  heart  and  soul,  and 
mind  and  strength  ;  must  be  serious,  and  total.  But  Thomas 
Carlyle  cannot  thus  laugh  at  any  sincere  faith ;  his  mirth,  like 
Cromwell's  speeches,  "  breaks  down,"  chokes  in  his  throat,  or 
dies  away  in  a  quaver  of  consternation.  But  why  ever  begin 
what  his  heart  will  not  permit  him  to  finish  ? 


CARLYLE  AND  STERLING.  271 


Thirdly,  his  contempt  for  the  office  of  the  Christian  minis- 
try is  so  violent,  and  almost  ferocious,  as  to  increase  the  sus- 
picion that  he  loves  Christianity  as  little  as  he  does  its  clergy. 
He  speaks  of  Sterling's  brief  curateship  as  the  great  mistake 
of  his  life — nay,  as  if  it  amounted  to  a  stain  and  crime.  It 
did  not  appear  so  to  poor  Sterling  himself,  who,  when  dying, 
begged  for  the  old  Bible  he  used  at  Herstmonceux  among  the 
cottages,  and  seems  to  have  died  with  it  in  his  arms.  It  does 
not  appear  so  to  us.  A  curate,  however  mistaken,  "  going 
about  doing  good,"  is  a  nobler  spectacle,  we  fancy,  than  a 
soured  and  stationary  litterateur,  sitting  with  a  pipe  in  his 
mouth,  and,  like  the  character  in  the  Psalms,  "  puffing  out 
despite"  at  all  his  real  or  imaginary  foes.  Sir  James  Macin- 
tosh thought  otherwise  of  ministerial  work,  when  he  congratu- 
lated Hall  on  having  turned  from  philosophy  and  letters  to 
the  "  far  nobler  task  of  soothing  the  afflicted,  succoring  the 
distressed,  and  remembering  the  forgotten."  We  have  no 
passion,  verily  for  "  surplices,"  nor  respect  for  many  whom 
they  cover ;  but  we  know  that  they  have  been  worn  by  men 
whose  shoe-latchets  neither  John  Sterling  nor  Thomas  Carlyle 
are  worthy  to  unloose ;  and  are  still  worn  by  some,  at  least, 
their  equals  in  powers  and  in  virtues,  in  scrupulosity  of  con- 
science, and  in  tenderness  and  dignity  of  walk.  John  Sterling 
would  have  been  a  far  better,  happier,  and  greater  man,  had 
he  remained  a  working  curate  to  the  last,  instead  of  becoming 
a  sort  of  petty  Prometheus,  equally  miserable,  and  nearly  as 
idle,  with  a  big  black  crow  (elegantly  mistaken  for  a  vulture) 
pecking  at  his  morbid  liver.  And,  for  our  part,  we  would 
rather  be  a  humble  city  missionary,  grappling  with  vulgar  sin 
and  misery,  in  the  lanes  of  one  of  our  cities — nay,  a  little 
child  repeating,  "  Jesus,  tender  shepherd,  hear  me,"  at  his 
mother's  knee,  than  sit  with  Sartor  on  his  burning  and  totter- 
ing throne  ! 

We  have  something  more  still  to  add.  We  respect  an<? 
love  much  about  Mr.  Carlyle ;  we  think  him  naturally  a  great, 
earnest,  true-hearted  man.  We  sympathise  cordially  with  his 
crusade  against  shams.  We  can  pardon,  or  at  least  wink  hard 
at,  the  recent  outpourings  of  his  wrath  against  the  most  emi- 
nent of  practical  philanthropists,  tracing  them  to  a  foul  sto- 
mach, and  not  to  a  black  heart.  But  we  should  like  him  to 


272  MISCELLANEOUS    SKETCHES.. 


"  deliver  his  soul"  more  even  than  here,  on  a  topic  to  which 
he  often  alludes,  but  on  which  he  is  never  so  explicit  as  he 
should  be — Christianity.  We  think  we  know  his  sentiments 
on  the  subject.  He  does  not,  we  fear,  acknowledge  its  pecu- 
liar and  divine  claims.  Seeing  clearly  that  there  are  but  two 
alternatives,  revelation  or  despair,  he  has  deliberately  chosen 
the  latter.  The  authority  of  the  Bible  is  one  of  those  things 
"  which  the  light  of  his  own  mind,  the  direct  inspiration  of 
the  Almighty,  pronounces  incredible." 

But  a  large  proportion  of  the  public  are  still  in  the  dark  as 
to  his  religious  sentiments.  We  have  heard  him  claimed  by 
intelligent  ministers  of  the  Free  Church  of  Scotland  as  a 
Christian,  nay,  a  Puritan.  Others,  not  quite  so  far  astray, 
look  upon  his  religious  opinions  as  uncertain,  vague,  indefinite, 
perhaps  not  yet  fully  formed.  This  is  the  fault  of  his  mystic 
and  tantalising  mode  of  expression.  Not  every  eye  can  pierce 
through  the  fantastic  veil  he  wears,  and  see  behind  it  the  fea- 
tures of  a  mere  nature  and  duty  worshipper.  That  veil,  we 
think,  he  is,  as  an  honest  and  earnest  man,  bound  entirely  to 
drop.  Masks  may  be  pardoned  in  a  tournament,  but  not  in 
hot  and  eager  battle.  The  question  as  to  the  truth  of  Chris- 
tianity has  become  the  engrossing  question  of  this  age,  aud  we 
cannot  now  bear  with  men  who  appear  to  halt  between  two 
opinions.  The  cry  was  never  more  distinctly  or  loudly 
sounded  than  it  is  at  present,  "  Who  is  on  the  Lord's  side, 
who  ?"  Differences  of  opinion  on  minor  matters  of  religion 
may  be  pardoned ;  "  orthodoxy"  and  "  heterodoxy"  have  be- 
come terms  equally  unmeaning,  and  equally  contemptible. 
But  this  is  now  the  point  at  issue :  Is  Christianity,  as  a 
whole,  a  truth  or  a  falsehood,  a  sham  or  a  reality — the  lie  of 
the  earth,  or  the  one  thing  in  its  history  worth  loving,  valuing, 
or  trusting  in  ?  While  the  more  resolute  of  sceptics,  such  as, 
the  worthies  of  the  "  Westminster  Review,"  have  taken  iheir 
stand,  and  proclaimed  "  war  to  the  knife,"  and  while  the 
defenders  of  Christianity  are  buckling  on  their  armor,  it  will 
not  much  longer  do  for  men  like  Mr.  Carlyle  to  utter  an 
uncertain  sound,  and  to  hang  off  on  the  outskirts  of  the  great 
battle.  In  this  "  Life  of  Sterling,"  its  author  had  a  good 
opportunity  of  declaring  himself  fully  on  the  subject,  and  the. 


CARLYLE  AND  STERLING.  273 


public  were  expecting  it ;  but  they  have  been  again  doomed 
to  disappointment. 

With  regard  to  John  Sterling,  there  is  not  very  much  added 
to  our  previous  information ;  but  beautiful  lights,  like  the 
golden  gleams  of  an  autumn  afternoon,  are  cast  upon  his  char- 
acter. His  "  nomadic"  existence — a  wanderer  in  evasion  of 
death — is  most  picturesquely  narrated.  Bute,  Glamorgan- 
shire, Madeira,  St.  Vincent,  Italy,  and  Clifton,  all  sit  for  por- 
traits, which  are  alike  faithful  and  poetic.  Old  Sterling  of 
the  "  Times" — "  Captain  Whirlwind" — comes  and  goes  in  a 
very  striking  manner.  Coleridge  sits  in  Highgate,  weaving 
endless  webs  of  "  theosophic  moonshine,"  or  walks  along  both 
sides  of  the  garden  gravel,  from  uncertainty  as  to  which  to 
take  !  (Hazlitt,  we  remember,  describes  him  even  when  young 
as  perpetually  crossing  the  road,  and  ascribes  it  to  instability 
of  purpose.)  And  the  various  members  of  the  Sterling  Club, 
including  Carlyle  himself,  are  introduced  at  intervals,  to  add 
life  and  interest  to  the  somewhat  melancholy  and  monotonous 
story. 

It  is  indeed  a  sad  narrative.  John  Sterling  died  a  young 
man  ,•  but  he  had  passed  through  ages  of  bodily  suffering  and 
mental  endurance.  He  "lived  fast,"  although  not  in  the  com- 
mon sense  of  that  expression.  His  life  was  one  hectic  fever  ; 
and  yet  his  peculiarly  buoyant  and  sanguine  temperament 
enabled  him  to  endure  with  grace  and  dignity.  His  mental 
struggles,  though  severe,  were  not  of  that  awful  earthquaking 
kind  which  shook  the  soul  of  Arnold,  and  drove  Sartor  howl- 
ing through  the  Everlasting  No,  like  a  lion  caught  in  a  forest 
of  fire.  It  was  rather  a  swift  succession  of  miseries,  than  one 
deep  devouring  anguish.  Yet  the  close  was  truly  tragical. 
How  affecting  the  words  of  his  last  letter  to  his  biographer,  "  I 
tread  the  common  road  into  the  great  darkness  without  any 
thought  of  fear,  and  with  very  much  of  hope.  Certainty, 
indeed,  I  have  none." 

He  adds,  in  reference  to  Carlyle,  "  Towards  me  it  is  still 
more  true  than  towards  England,  that  no  man  has  been,  and 
done  like  you."  We  are  tempted  to  a  very  opposite  conclu- 
sion ;  we  think,  that  unintentionally  Mr.  Carlyle  was  the 
means  of  mortal  injury  to  Sterling's  mind.  He  shook  his 
attachment  to  Coleridge,  and  thus  to  Christianity;  stripping 


/i74  MISCELLANEOUS    SKETCHES. 


him  of  that  garment  of  "  moonshine,"  he  Itft  him  naked. 
Shattering  the  creed  Sterling  had  attained,  he  supplied  him 
with  no  other.  That  Sterling  was  friendly  and  grateful  to 
him  to  the  last,  is  abundantly  evident ;  but  that  he  was  satis- 
fied with  his  position  on  that  cold,  Goethe-like,  godless  crag 
to  which  Mr.  Carlyle's  hand  had  helped  him  up,  is  not  so 
clear ;  his  calling  for  the  Bible  in  his  last  hours  is  against  the 
supposition  that  he  was.*  He  took,  at  least,  a  Protestant 
extreme  unction.  We  can  almost  fancy  the  stern  Sartor  in 
his  last  moments  doing  the  same ;  and,  as  is  fabulously  re- 
ported of  Godwin,  "  making  a  good  end  as  a  Methodist." 

The  book  does  not  at  all  modify  our  verdict  of  Sterling's 
literary  character.  He  was  rather  brilliant  than  profound ; 
rather  swift  than  strong;  rather  a  man  of  rare  ingenuity  and 
culture,  than  a  man  of  transcendent  genius.  He  was  more  of 
a  rapid  runner  than  of  a  sturdy  athlete.  His  powers  were  sin- 
gularly varied  and  versatile ;  and  though  he  has  left  nothing 
behind  him  which  the  world  shall  not  willingly  let  die,  he  has 
done  so  much,  and  that  so  well,  as  to  excite  keen  regret  at  his 
premature  departure.  We  think  prose,  and  not  poetry,  was 
Ids  proper  department,  and  that  in  one  region — that,  namely, 
of  high  and  solemn  fiction — he  would  have  had  few  superiors. 
Mr.  Carlyle  predicates  great  things  of  a  poem  on  Coeur  de 
Lion,  which  he  left  unfinished.  Why  is  it  not  given  to  the 
world  ?  His  "  Onyx  Ring"  is  perhaps  the  best  of  his  pro 
ductions.  In  it  he  shadows  forth  Goethe  and  Carlyle  as 
Walsingham  and  Collins.  Both  portraitures  are  true  to  the 
life.  The  polished  colossal  coldness  of  the  great  German,  and 
the  wild,  unhappy  fire  of  the  Scotchman,  are  made  to  give  and 
lend  illustration  and  relief  to  each  other.  His  views  of  Goethe, 
Mr.  Carlyle  aifirms,  underwent  a  change,  and  he  died,  it  seems, 
a  profound  worshipper  of  the  "  Pagan,"  as  he  had  previously 
called  him.  He  might,  had  he  lived,  have  altered  his  opinion 
again.  Mr.  Carlyle's  inordinate  attachment  to  Goethe  has 
always  seemed  to  us  inscrutable.  It  is  the  fire-king  worship- 
ping a  gigantic  iceberg — a  pure  man  adoring  a  splendid  sen- 
sualist— a  sincere  man  admiring  a  consummate  courtier — the 

*  Since  writing  the  above,  we  saw  an  acquaintance  of  Sterling's, 
who  assured  us  that  he  did  not  die  a  Carlylist,  but  a  Christian 


CARLYLE    AND    STERLING.  275 


most  ardent  worshipping  the  coldest  of  all  men  of  genius — 
'tis  verily  a  great  mystery.  We  can  only  solve  it  upon  the 
principle  of  those  marriages  where  the  parties  seem  to  have 
selected  each  other  on  account  of  their  absolute  and  ideal 
unlikeuess. 

We  cannot  close  without  adverting  again  to  that  topic 
which  has  invested  Sterling  with  so  much  painful  interest — his 
unsettled  religion,  and  the  representative  he  thus  becomes  of 
thousands  iu  our  day.  A  few  general  remarks  on  this  subject 
must  suffice. 

That  the  times  in  which  we  live  have  assumed  a  dubious 
and  portentous  aspect,  on  the  subject  of  religion,  is  a  fact  gen- 
erally admitted.  There  are,  indeed,  still  some  who  persist  in 
closing  their  eyes  to  the  dangers  by  which  we  are  environed, 
and  in  crying  out,  "  Peace,  peace,  when  there  is  no  peace." 
These  men,  while  listening  to  the  loud  masonry  of  rising 
churches,  to  the  plaudits  of  May  meetings,  and  to  the  far- 
borne  hum  of  missionary  schools,  have  no  ears  for  the  roar  of 
the  fountains  of  the  great  deep  of  thought  which  are  breaking 
up  around  them,  or  to  the  noise  of  the  "  multitudes,  the  mul- 
titudes "  rapidly  convening  in  the  valley  of  decision.  But  he 
who  can  abstract  himself  from  nearer  and  more  clamorous 
sounds,  and  from  the  pleasing  but  partial  prospects  which  are 
under  his  eye,  becomes  aware  of  many  and  complicated  dan- 
gers, which  seem  deepening  into  a  crisis,  darkening  into  a  noon 
of  night,  above  the  head  of  all  the  churches  of  Christ.  Every 
one  remembers  the  remarkable  passage  in  Lord  Chesterfield's 
letters,  written  in  France  before  the  Revolution,  where  he  ex- 
presses his  conviction  that  he  is  surrounded  by  all  the  tokens 
and  symbols  of  a  falling  empire.  So  it  now  implies  no  pre- 
tensions to  prophetic  insight  for  any  one  to  declare  that  he 
lives  amid  the  auguries  of  a  coming  religious  revolution — to 
equal  which  we  must  travel  back  eighteen  centuries,  and 
which,  like  that  succeeding  the  death  of  Christ,  has  bearings 
and  promises  consequences  of  transcendent  importance  and 
unending  interest. 

The  symptoms  of  this  great  revolution  include  the  general 
indefinite  panic  of  apprehension  which  prevails  in  the  minds 
of  Christians ;  the  increase  of  a  slow,  quiet,  but  profound 
spirit  of  doubt  among  many  classes  of  men  ;  the  spread  of 


276  MISCELLANEOUS     SKETCHES. 


Popery  (the  coming  forth  of  which  Beast  of  Darkness  is  it- 
self a  proof  that  there  is  a  night  at  hand);  the  re-agitation  of 
many  questions  which,  in  general  belief,  seemed  settled  for 
ever ;  the  fact  that  all  churches  are  shaking  visibly,  some  of 
them,  indeed,  concealing  their  tremor  under  energetic  convul- 
sions ;  the  fact  that,  like  those  plants  which  close  up  at  eve- 
ning, a  few  of  our  rigid  sects  are  drawing  more  closely  within 
themselves ;  the  loosening  of  the  bands  of  creeds  and  confes- 
sions ;  the  growing  disregard  to  the  wisdom,  and  disbelief  in 
the  honesty  and  ward,  of  the  men  of  the  past ;  the  uprise  of 
a  stern  individualism  and  of  a  personal  habit  of  analysis, 
which  leaves  nothing  unexamined,  and  takes  nothing  on  trust ; 
the  eagerness  with  which  every  innovation  is  welcomed,  and 
every  new  cry  of  "  Lo  here,  or  lo  there,"  is  heard  ;  the  signi- 
ficant circumstance  that  many  from  the  most  diverse  classes, 
the  litterateur,  the  inquiring  mechanic,  the  statesman,  the 
youth,  the  accomplished  lady,  are  united  in  restless  dissatisfac- 
tion with  our  present  forms  of  faith,  or  in  open  protest  against 
them  ;  the  innumerable  defences  of  the  old,  which  every  day 
sees  procreated  to  leave  little  or  no  practical  result ;  the  yawn- 
ing chasm  in  the  public  mind,  crying  out,  "  Give,  give  " — a 
chasm  widening  continually,  and  into  which  no  Curtius  has 
hitherto  precipitated  himself;  the  hurry  of  the  weaker  of  the 
community  to  plunge  into  the  arms  of  implicit  faith,  or  of  low 
infidelity,  or  of  hardened  indifference ;  and  the  listening  atti- 
tude of  the  stronger  and  better — of  the  literary  man  for  his 
ideal  artist — of  the  student  of  morals  and  mind  for  his  new 
Plato — of  the  politician  for  his  "  coming  man  " — of  the  Chris- 
tian thinker  for  the  Paul  of  the  Present,  if  not  for  the  Jesus 
of  the  Past ;  such  are  only  a  few  of  the  phenomena  which 
prove  that  the  silent  frozen  seas  of  an  ancient  era  of  thought 
are  breaking  up,  and  that  another  is  about  to  succeed  ;  that 
"  old  things  are  passing  away,  and  all  things  becoming  new;" 
and  that,  moreover,  this  mighty  change  will,  in  all  probability, 
be  accompanied  by  the  blackness,  and  darkness,  and  tempest, 
the  voices,  and  thunders,  and  lightnings,  amid  which,  in  every 
age,  great  dynasties,  whether  temporal  or  spiritual,  have  been 
overturned  or  changed. 

"  Overturned  or   changed."     These  are   words   on   which 
much  depends ;  and  on  them  we  join  issue  with  Mr.  Carlyle 


CARLYLE    AND    STERLING.  277 


and  his  school.  Their  cry,  open  or  stifled,  is,  "  Raze,  raze  it 
to  the  foundations."  Ours  is,  "Reform,  rebuild."  "Fight 
on  in  the  remaining  virtue  and  strength  of  the  system,  till  the 
expected  reserve,  long  promised,  come  up  to  your  aid." 
Change,  vital  and  radical,  there  must  be ;  and  the  great  ques- 
tion with  the  intelligent  is,  how  far  is  it  to  extend;  how  much 
of  the  old  is  to  be  left ;  and  how  much  to  be  taken  away  ? 

This  question  is  too  large  for  our  present  discussion  ;  but 
this  we  must  say,  that,  while  we  deeply  condemn  the  destruc- 
tive purpose  and  spirit  of  Mr.  Carlyle  and  his  party,  we  have 
just  as  little  sympathy  with  those  who  imagine  that  Christian- 
ity is  in  a  very  comfortable  and  prosperous  condition.  Surely 
these  men  have  "  eyes,  but  see  not ;  ears,  but  hear  not ;  they 
know  not,  neither  do  they  understand."  We  seem,  on  the 
other  hand,  to  see  distinctly  the  following  alarming  facts. 

First,  Christianity,  in  its  present  forms,  or  shall  we  say  dis- 
guises, has  ceased,  to  a  great  extent,  to  be  considered  a  soli- 
tary divine  thing.  It  is  no  longer  with  men  "  the  one  thing 
needful."  It  has  come  down  to,  or  below,  the  level  of  the 
other  influences  which  sway  our  age.  '  The  oracular  power 
which  once  dwelt  in  the  pulpit  has  departed  to  the  printing- 
press  on  the  other  side  of  the  way.  The  parish  church,  which 
once  lorded  it  over  the  landscape,  and  pointed  its  steeple  like 
a  still  finger  of  hushing  awe ;  and  even  the  Minister,  lifting 
up  a  broader  hand  of  more  imperative  power,  have  found  for- 
midable rivals,  not  only  in  the  dissenting  chapel,  but  in  the 
private  school,  nay,  in  the  public  house  of  the  village,  where 
men  talk,  and  think,  and  form  passionate  purposes  over  new 
journals  and  old  ale.  Sermons  are  now  criticised,  not  obeyed, 
and  when  our  modern  Pauls  preach,  our  Felixes  yawn  instead 
of  trembling.  Ministers  have  for  the  most  part  become  a 
timid  and  apologetic  class ;  the  fearlessness  of  Knox  is  seldom 
met,  save  among  the  fanatics  of  their  number,  in  whom  it  looks 
simply  ludicrous.  The  thunders  of  the  pulpit  have  died  away, 
or  when  they  are  awakened,  it  is  through  the  preacher's  deter- 
mination to  be  popular,  or  through  the  agitation  of  his  despair. 
In  general,  he  consults,  not  commands,  the  taste  of  his  audi- 
ence ;  and  his  word,  unlike  that  of  his  professed  Master,  is 
ivithout  authority,  and,  therefore,  as  that  of  the  scribes,  nay, 
less  powerful  far  than  theirs.  John  Howe  could  preach  six 


273  MISCELLANEOUS    SKETCHES. 


hours  to  unwearied  throngs  ;  twenty  years  ago,  Edward  Irving 
could  protract  his  speech  to  midnight ;  but  now  a  sermon  of 
forty  minutes,  even  from  eloquent  lips,  is  thought  sufficiently 
exhaustive,  both  of  the  subject  and  of  the  audience.  The  pri- 
vate influence  of  clergymen  is  still  considerable ;  but  it  is  that 
of  the  respective  individuals,  not  of  the  general  class ;  and 
where  now,  in  reference  to  even  the  best  of  their  number,  that 
deep  devotion  to  their  persons,  that  submission  to  their  slight- 
est words,  that  indulgence  to  their  frailties,  and  that  plenary 
confidence  in  their  honesty,  which  linked  our  fathers  to  them, 
and  them  to  our  fathers  ?  a  submission  and  indulgence  from 
which,  doubtless,  great  evils  sprang,  but  which  sprang  from 
principles  deeper  than  the  evils,  and  which  were  rooted  in  the 
genuine  belief  of  Christianity  which  then  prevailed. 

There  are  other  ills  behind.  The  written  documents  of  the 
churches  have  lost  much  of  their  influence ;  always  dry,  they 
are  now  summer  dust.  What  man  among  twenty  thousand  in 
Scotland  has  read  the  Westminster  Confession  ;  and  what  man 
in  a  million  in  England  the  Thirty-nine  Articles  ?  The  very 
curses  of  the  Athanasian  Creed  have  become  cold,  and  now 
cease  to  irritate,  because  they  are  no  longer  read.  Catechisms 
chiefly  rule  the  minds  of  children,  who  do  not,  however,  be- 
lieve them  so  firmly,  or  love  them  so  well,  as  their  fathers 
when  they  were  children.  Even  to  clergymen  such  documents 
have  become  rather  fences,  keeping  them  away  from  danger, 
than  living  expressions  of  their  own  faith  and  hope.  They 
sign,  and  never  open  them  any  more !  And  thus  those  un- 
happy books,  although  containing  in  them  much  eternal  truth, 
although  written  by  men  of  insight,  learning,  and  profound 
earnestness,  occupy  a  place  equally  painful  and  ludicrous ; 
they  are  attacked  by  few,  they  are  defended  by  few,  they  are 
read  by  none,  they  are  allowed  to  sleep  till  an  ordination  day 
comes  round,  and,  after  it  is  over,  they  lapse  into  dust  and 
darkness  again.  Sometimes  editions  of  them  are  placarded  on. 
the  walls  as  "  reduced  in  price."  Alas !  their  value,  too,  is 
reduced  to  a  degree  which  might  disturb  the  shades  of  Twiss 
and  Ridgeley.  Ancient  medals,  marbles,  fossil  remains,  nay, 
modern  novels,  are  regarded  now  with  far  more  interest  and 
credence  than  tho.se  articles  of  faith  which  originally  came  forth 


CARLYLE    AND    STERLING  279 


baptised  in  the  sweat  and  blood  of  our  early  reformers  and  re- 
reformers. 

Nay,  to  pass  from  man's  word  to  God's  word,  the  Bible 
itself,  the  book  of  the  world,  the  Alp  of  literature,  the  old 
oracle  of  the  past,  the  word  of  light,  which  has  cast  its  solemn 
ray  upon  all  books  and  all  thoughts,  and  was  wont,  as  the  sun 
evening  clouds,  to  transfigure  even  the  doubts  and  difficulties 
which  assailed  it  into  embers  in  its  own  burning  glory ;  the 
Bible,  too,  has  suffered  from  the  analysis,  the  coldness,  and 
the  uncertainty  of  our  age.  It  is  circulated,  indeed,  widely; 
it  is  set  in  a  prominent  place  in  our  exhibitions ;  it  lies  in  the 
boudoir  of  our  sovereign,  gilded,  elegantly  lettered,  and  splen- 
didly bound.  It  is  quoted  now  in  Parliament  without  provok- 
ing a  laugh ;  its  language  is  frequently  used  by  our  judges, 
even  when  they  are  trampling  on  its  precepts,  and  dooming  poor 
ignorant  wretches  to  be  "  hanged  by  the  neck  till  they  be  dead," 
with  sentences  from  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  in  their  wise  and 
solemn  threats.  It  is  sometimes  seen  on  the  death-bed  of  scep- 
tics; when  assailed,  the  attack  is  generally  prefaced  by  a  deep 
bow  of  real  or  apparent  respect ;  such  a  reverence  as  might  be 
given  by  a  revolutionist  to  a  fallen  king.  But  where  is  the 
crown  wherewith  its  Father  crowned  it  ?  Where  the  red  circle 
of  Sinaitic  fire  about  its  brows?  Where  the  halo  of  Calvary  ? 
Where  the  awful  reverence  which  once  ringed  in  its  every  page, 
and  made  even  its  chronologies  and  naked  names  hallowed  and 
sublime?  Where  the  feeling  which  dictated  the  title — which, 
although  not  expressly  given  by  God,  yet,  coming  out  from  the 
deep  heart  of  man's  devotion,  might  be  called  divine,  and 
might  be  compared  to  God's  "  naming  of  the  stars" — th$ 
"Holy  Bible?"  Where  the  thunder,  blended  with  still 
small  voices  of  equal  power,  which  once  ran  down  the  ages, 
came  all  from  the  one  Hebrew  cave,  and  which  to  hear  was  to 
obey,  and  to  obey  was  to  worship  ?  Has  its  strength  gone  out 
from  it  ?  is  it  dead,  or  has  it  become  weak  as  other  books  ? 
No ;  its  life,  its  divine  stamp  and  innate  worth,  remain ;  but 
they  are  disputed,  or  only  half  acknowledged,  when  not  alto- 
getlaer  ignored. 

Such  are  a  few  of  the  symptoms  of  our  spiritual  disease. 
We  have  not  room  to  dilate  on  our  conceptions  of  the  remedy. 
Suffice  it  at  present  to  say,  that  our  conviction  is  decided  (an<? 


280  MISCELLANEOUS    SKETCHES. 


that  of  the  age  shall  soon  come  to  the  same  point),  that  there 
is  nothing  more  to  be  expected  from  Carlylism ;  that  bomb- 
shell has  burst,  and  its  fragments  are  colored  with  the  blood 
of  John  Sterling,  and  hundreds  besides  him  !  The  city  "  No," 
to  use  the  prophet's  language,  has  been  long  a  "  populous 
city;"  but  its  population  must  become  thinner.  The  "ever- 
lasting Yea,"  on  the  other  hand,  has  fair  turrets  and  golden 
spires ;  but  it  is  a  city  in  the  clouds,  abandoned,  too,  by  its 
builder ;  there  is  no  such  place,  either  in  this  world  or  in  that 
which  is  to  come.  There  seems  nothing  for  it  but  downright 
'naturalism,  which  means  flat  desperation,  or  a  return  to  Chris- 
tianity, in  a  new,  higher,  and  more  hopeful  form.  We,  at 
least,  have  made  up  our  minds  to  cling  to  the  old  banner  of 
the  cross ;  expecting  that  since  Jesus  has  already  shaken  the 
world  by  his  accents,  as  no  man  ever  did,  he  has  only  to  speak 
"  once  more,"  at  his  own  time,  and  in  the  language  of  the 
"  two-edged  sword,"  which  issues  from  his  glorified  lips — to 
revolutionise  society,  to  purify  the  thrashing-floor  of  his  church, 
and  to  introduce  that  "  milder  day,"  for  which,  in  all  dialects 
and  in  all  ages,  the  true,  the  noble,  the  gifted,  and  the  pious, 
have  been  breathing  their  prayers.  If  we  err  in  this,  we  err 
in  company  with  John  Milton,  and  with  many,  only  less  than 
he. 

Since  writing  the  first  half  of  our  critique,  we  have  read  the 
"  Times"  on  "  Carlyle's  Sterling."  We  are,  in  general,  no 
admirers  of  that  "  perpetual  Prospectus,"  that  gigantic  Jesuit 
of  the  press,  that  Cerberus  with  three  heads,  three  tongues, 
and  no  heart ;  which  can  be  bribed,  though  not  bought ;  sop- 
ped, but  not  enticed  to  the  upper  air  (and  the  Hercules  to 
drag  up  this  Jog  of  darkness  has  not  yet  arrived);  but  we 
have  for  once  been  delighted  with  an  effusion  from  Printing- 
house  Square.  The  thunderbolts  are  well  fabricated,  and  ar<* 
strongly  pointed  at  Mr.  Carlyle's  entirely  negative  and  un 
satisfactory  mode  of  thought ;  at  his  systematic,  though  sub 
voce,  depreciation  of  Christianity ;  at  the  gloomy  bile  which 
spots  the  splendor  of  his  genius  ;  at  the  charges  of  "  coward- 
ice" and  weakness  which  he  dashes  in  the  face  of  every  one 
who  ventures  to  believe  Christianity,  or  to  pray  to  the  Al- 
mighty Father;  at  the  deliberate  darkness  be  piles,  or  at  least 
leaves  unmitigated,  around  the  religious  creed  and  last  ex- 


EMERSON. 


periences  of  poor  Sterling ;  and  at  the  fierce  and  disgusting 
dogmatism,  which  is  often  his  substitute  for  logic,  and  his  pis 
aller  for  inspiration.  But  we  do  not  believe,  with  the  "  Times" 
that  in  this  book  Thomas's  wrath  has  got  to  its  height  -,  for, 
in  fact,  it  is  mere  milk-and-water  compared  to  his  "  Pam^ 
phlets ;"  nor  do  we  think  that  his  temper  is  his  greatest  fault ; 
pride,  according  to  the  measure  of  a  demon,  is  his  raging  sin ; 
and  no  words  in  Scripture  are  more  repulsive  to  him  than 
these,  "  Except  a  man  become  as  a  little  child,  he  shall  in  no 
wise  enter  into  the  kingdom  of  heaven."  But  none  are  more 
tnic,  and,  to  a  large  portion  of  men,  none  more  terrible. 


NO,    II.-EMERSON,* 

THE  fame  of  Emerson  has  had  a  singular  cycle  of  history, 
within  the  last  thirteen  years,  in  Britain.  His  first  Essays, 
re-published  in  1841,  with  a  preface  by  Carlyle,  were,  on  the 
whole,  coldly  welcomed  by  the  public  ;  with  the  exceptions  of 
the  "  Eclectic  Review,"  which  praised  their  genius  while  con- 
demning their  opinions,  and  "  Tait's  Magazine,"  the  monthly 
and  quarterly  press  either  ignored  or  abused  them.  Their  ad- 
mirers, indeed,  were  very  ardent,  but  they  were  very  few,  and 
principally  young  men,  whose  enthusiasm  was  slightly  shaded 
with  a  sceptical  tendency.  Between  this  period  and  his  visit 
to  Britain,  in  1848,  a  great  revolution  in  his  favor  had  taken 
place.  The  publication  of  a  second  volume  of  Essays,  still 
more  peculiar  and  daring  than  the  first,  the  re-appearance  of 
his  tractate,  entitled  "  Nature" — the  most  complete  and 
polished  of  all  his  works — the  deepening  enthusiasm  of  his  ad- 
mirers, and  the  exertions  of  one  or  two  of  them,  who  had  gain- 
ed the  ear  of  the  public,  and  were  determined  to  fill  it  with  his 
fame,  as  well  as  the  real  merit  of  his  writings,  had  amply  pre- 

*  The  Complete  Works  of  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson. 


282  MISCELLANEOUS    SKETCHES 


pared  the  country  for  his  approach,  when,  among  the  last  days 
of  1847,  he  set  the  impress  of  his  foot  upon  our  shores.  Then 
his  name  and  influence  came  to  a  culminating  point,  and  ever 
since  they  seem  to  us  to  have  declined.  For  this,  various 
causes  may  be  assigned. 

In  the  first  place,  his  appearance  disappointed  many ;  they 
did  not  meet  the  rapt,  simple,  dreaming  enthusiast  of  whom 
they  had  been  dreaming. 

Secondly,  his  Lectures  were  chiefly  double  entendres.  There 
were  alike  commissions  and  omissions  in  them,  which  proved 
this  to  a  certainty.  We  have  seen  him  scanning  an  audience 
ere  he  resolved  which  of  two  lectures  he  should  give.  Thin]; 
of  Paul  on  Mars  Hill,  balancing  between  two  Greek  variations 
of  his  immortal  speech,  or,  on  consideration,  choosing  another 
text  than  "  Ye  men  of  Athens,  I  perceive  that  in  all  things  ye 
worship  DEMONS  too  much."  We  have  heard  of  him,  too, 
sacrificing,  to  suit  an  audience,  the  principal  pith,  marrow,  and 
meaning  of  a  whole  lecture  ;  as  if,  in  quoting  the  words,  "  thou 
shalt  worship  the  Lord  thy  God,"  he  had  slily  and  sub  voce 
substituted  the  little  word  "  not."  Nay,  even  when  there  was 
no  such  disingenuous  concealment  or  subtraction,  there  was  a 
game  of  "  hide-and-seek"  continually  going  on — a  use  of  Scrip- 
ture phrases  in  an  unscriptural  sense,  a  trimming,  and  turn- 
ing, and  terror  at  the  prejudices  of  his  audience,  altogether 
unworthy  of  his  genius.  Indeed,  we  wonder  that  the  tribe  of 
expectant  materialists  in  England  and  Scotland,  with  Holy- 
oake,  MacAll,  and  George  Combe  at  their  head,  had  not,  dis- 
gusted at  the  doubledealing  of  their  American  champion,  met 
at  Berwick-upon-Tweed,  and  burned  him  in  effigy.  They,  at 
least,  are  direct,  and  honest,  and  thoroughgoing  men,  we  mean 
animals,  for  they  are  perpetually  boasting  of  their  lineal  de- 
scent from  brutes,  and  reptiles,  and  fishes,  and  slime,  and 
everything  but  God,  and  we  are  not  disposed  to  deny  their 
far-come  and  dearly-won  honors,  or  to  quarrel,  so  far  as  they 
are  concerned,  with  this  mud  heraldry. 

Thirdly,  the  better  portion  of  the  age  is  fast  becoming  sick 
of  all  systems  of  mere  negation.  And  what  else  is  Emerson's  ? 
Any  man  who  has  ever  thought  for  himself  is  competent  to 
deny,  and  even  to  make  his  system  of  denial  almost  impregna- 
ble. A  child  of  six  or  seven  is  quite  able  to  trace  the  syllable 


EMERSON.  283 


No.  To  use  again  the  allusion  of  the  prophet,  "  it  is  a  popu- 
lous city — No  ;"  and  assuredly  Emerson  keeps  one  of  its  prin- 
cipal gates.  But,  with  the  exception  of  a  mangled  Platonism, 
although  he  seldom  if  ever  quotes  the  Greek  of  Plato,  there  is 
not  a  trace  of  system,  of  consistent  intuition,  of  progressive 
advancement  in  thought,  in  all  his  writings.  In  one  part  of 
them  he  makes  man's  soul  all ;  in  a  second,  he  makes  nature 
all ;  and,  in  a  third,  he  magnifies  some  shadowy  abstraction 
which  he  calls  the  "  Oversoul,"  a  sort  of  sublime  overhead 
negro-driver,  compelling  men  to  hell  or  heaven,  as  seems  good 
in  his  own  blind  eyes.  In  one  place  he  declares  that  society 
never  advances,  and  in  another  he  gives  a  chart  of  a  Millen- 
nium in  society  which  love  is  by  "  pushing"  to  produce.  Con- 
tradictory intuitions,  as  he  would  call  them,  abound  in  al- 
most every  page,  and  the  question  naturally  arises,  which  are 
we  to  believe  ?  which  of  the  deliverances  of  this  Paul-Pyrrho, 
this  oracular  sceptic,  this  captive  tq,  the  "  Oversoul,"  are  we 
to  receive  as  his  ?  To  refute  them  were  difficult,  because,  in 
the  first  place,  it  is  not  easy  to  see  what  they  are ;  because, 
secondly,  he  often  saves  us  the  trouble,  by  contradicting  thein 
in  the  next  page  or  volume  himself;  and  because,  thirdly,  while 
it  is  the  simplest  matter  in  the  world  to  rear  or  to  dwell  in  the 
"  City  No,"  it  is  the  most  difficult  matter  to  overturn  it.  It 
is  like  hunting  a  dream,  or  trampling  on  a  shade,  or  fitting  out 
an  expedition  to  overset  Aladdin's  palace. 

Such  are  some  of  the  reasons  why  Emerson's  influence  over 
the  young,  sincere,  and  liberal  minds  of  the  age  must  rapidly 
go  down — like  an  October  sun,  very  bright,  but  which  is  too 
late  for  ripening  anything,  and  which,  after  a  brief  meridian, 
and  a  briefer  afternoon,  sinks,  as  if  in  haste  and  confusion,  be- 
low the  horizon.  Another  reason  we  are  reluctantly,  and  in 
deep  sorrow,  compelled  to  add — Emerson  is  one  of  the  few 
sceptics  who  has  personally,  and  by  name,  insulted  the  Lord 
Jesus  Christ,  and,  through  him,  that  Humanity  of  which  Je- 
sus is  the  Hope,  the  Glory,  the  Ideal,  and  the  Crown.  This 
extreme  Carlyle  has  always  avoided,  and  he  has  never  spoken 
of  Christ,  or  of  the  Divine  Mystery  implied  in  him,  but  with 
deep  reverence.  Many  other  of  the  sublimer  order  of  doubt- 
ers have  been  equally  guarded.  But  Emerson,  with  Julian 
the  Apostate,  Voltaire,  Paine,  and  Francis  Newman,  must 


284  MISCELLANEOUS    SKETCHES. 


bear  the  brand  of  using  language  to  Christ  which  no  man  of 
culture  would  now  apply  to  a  Caesar,  a  Dan  ton,  or  a  Napoleon. 
He  says,  "  this  shoves  Jesus  and  Judas  both  aside."  Ho 
speaks,  again,  of  Christ's  "  tropes,"  as  if  the  man  who  died  on 
Calvary  because  he  would  not  lie,  was  an  exaggerator  and  a 
rhetorician,  when  he  said,  "  I  and  my  Father  are  one,"  or,  ahe 
that  has  seen  me,  has  seen  the  Father." 

We  have  heard  a  dog  baying  at  the  moon — we  have  heard 
of  a  maniac  spitting  foam  at  the  stars — -we  have  watched  the 
writhings  of  crushedjnediocrity  as  it  gazed  on  the  bright  pages 
of  genius — and  we  have  understood,  excused,  pittied,  and  for- 
given all  such  in  their  morbid  or  mistaken  feelings.  But  how 
one  calling  himself  a  man,  and  reputed  really  a  man  of  genius, 
could,  in  his  most  unhappy  hour,  have  uttered  a  word  against 
our  Brother — God — the  Eternal  Child — the  Babe  in  the 
Manger — the  Boy  in  the  Temple — the  Carpenter  in  the  Shed 
— the  Weeper  at  the  Grave — the  Sufferer  on  the  Cross — the 
Risen  from  the  Tomb — the  Exalted  to  the  Heavens — the 
Friend  by  eminence  of  our  fallen  Family — the  Expected  from 
the  Clouds — The  Type  and  Test  of  whatever  is  holy,  and 
charitable,  and  lovely,  and  lofty  in  the  race  of  man — passes 
our  conceptions,  and  has  strained  to  its  utmost  our  power  of 
forgiveness. 

Why,  we  must  also  inquire,  has  he  said  such  things,  and 
yet  not  said  more  of  Jesus  ?  "  What  thinkest  thou  of  Christ  ?" 
If  he  was  an  impostor,  say  so.  If  he  was  a  madman,  say  so. 
If  he  was  God  in  human  shape,  say  so.  If  he  is  merely  the 
conventional  ideal  of  human  nature,  say  so  more  distinctly. 
If  he  is  neither,  nor  all  of  these,  then  what  is  he  ?  whence  has 
he  come?  Emerson,  while  striking  hard,  and  often,  and  open- 
ly, at  the  divinity  of  Jesus,  and  not  sparing  quiet  sotto  voce 
insinuations  against  his  character  and  his  power  over  the 
minds  of  men,  has  never  yet  propounded  or  sought  to  pro- 
pound any  probable  or  intelligible  theory  of  Christ.  He  has 
simply,  with  muttered,  or  more  than  muttered,  sneers  or  sighs 
over  his  unacknowledged  claims,  turned  away,  refusing  to  look 
at  or  to  worship  this  "  great  sight." 

Man  seems  the  Christ  of  Emerson.  And  a  sorry  Christ  he 
is.  "  Man,"  says  Bacon,  "  is  the  god  of  the  dog  ;"  but  were 
a  dog  fancying  himself  a  man,  it  were  a  supposition  less  mon- 


EMERSON.  285 


strous  than  the  universal  Immanuelisin  of  Emrfrsou.     If  man 
be  the  Christ,  where  are  the  works  which  prove  him  so  ?     If 
every  man  has  the  divinity  within  him,  why  are  the  majority 
of  men  so  corrupt  and  malignant  ?     If  the  history  of  man  be 
the  history  of  God  in  human  nature,  why  is  it  little  else  than 
ono  tissue  of  blood,   falsehood,  and  low   sin  ?     We  think  he 
might  far  more  plausibly  start  and  defend  the  hypothesis  that 
man  is  the  devil ;  and  that  his  history  has  hitherto  been  but 
a  long  development  of  diabolism.     And,  in  proving  this,  ha 
might  avail  himself  to  great  advantage  of  Quetelet's  tables, 
which  demonstrate  the  significant  fact,  that  certain  works  of  a 
rather  infernal  character,  such  as  murder,  arson,  and  rape,  re- 
appear in  steady  and  mathematical  succession,   and  no  more 
than  summer  and  winter,   seed-time  and    harvest,   are  ever  to 
cease.     The  presence  of  such   an   eternal  law  would  go  far  to 
prove  that  man  was  an  immutable  and  hopeless  child  of  hell. 
Many   strange  deductions  seem  to  follow  from  Emerson's 
theory,  nay,  are  more  or  less  decidedly  admitted  by  him.     If 
man  be  the  Christ  or  God  incarnate,  then  there  can  be  no  such 
thing  as  guilt,  uiid  there  ought  to  be  no  such  thing  as  punish- 
ment.    Whatever  is  done,  is  done,  not  by  God's  permission  or 
command,  but  by  God  himself.     God  is  at  once  the  judge  and 
the  offender.     If  man  be  God  tncarnate,   it  follows  that  he  is 
the  creator  of  all  things.     This  Emerson  repeatedly  intimates. 
The  sun  is  but  a  splendid  mote  in  man's  eye  ;  the  moon  is  but 
his  produced  and  prolonged  smile  ;   the  earth  is  the  shadow  of 
his  shape  ;  the  stars  are  lustres  in  the  room  of  his  soul ;   the 
universe  is  the  bright  precipitate  of  his  thought.     He  is  the 
Alpha  and  Omega,  the  beginning  of  the  Creation  of  God,  and 
its  ending  too.     "  The  simplest  person,"  he  says,  "  who,  in  his 
integrity,  worships    God,   becomes   God."     It   follows,  again, 
that  no  supernaturalism  ever  did  or  ever  could  exist.     It  was, 
according  to  Emeraon,    Moses,   not    Jehovah,    who  spoke   on 
Sinai.     It  was  Isaiah's  own  human  soul  which  saw  the  fate  of 
empires  as  distinctly  as  we  see  stars  falling  through  the  mid- 
night.    It  was  the  mere  man   Christ  Jesus,   who  taught,  and 
worked,  and  died  in  Judea.     The  possibility,  in   like  manner, 
of  any  future  revelation  from  heaven   is  ignored — ignored  by 
the  denial  of  any  heaven  save  the  mind   of  man.     This  is  the 
dunghill-Olympus  on  which  Emerson  seats  his  shadowy  gods. 


286  MISCELLANEOUS    SKETCHES. 


And  whatever  strange  and  aerial-seeming  shapes  may  hereaf- 
ter appear  upon  its  summit,  are  to  be  in  reality  only  sublima- 
ted mud — the  beauty  and  the  strength  of — dirt.  "  Man,"  to 
use  Foster's  language,  is  to  produce  an  "  apotheosis  of  him- 
self, by  the  hopeful  process  of  exhausting  his  own  corruptions," 
or  sublimating  them  into  a  putrid  holiness. 

It  follows,  again,  that  whatever  he  may  say  in  particular 
passages,  there  can  be  no  advancing  or  steady  progress  in 
humanity.  The  laws  which  develop  it  are  unchangeable,  the 
climate  in  which  it  lives  is  subject  to  very  slight  variations  ; 
its  "  Oversoul"  is  a  stern  demon,  with,  perhaps,  as  he  says, 
"  a  secret  kindness  in  its  heart,"  but  outwardly  a  very  Moloch 
of  equal  calm  and  cruelty ;  and  under  his  eye,  society  and 
man  must  work,  and  bleed,  and  suffer  on,  upon  this  rolling 
earth,  as  on  an  eternal  treadmill  in  a  mist.  'Tis  a  gospel  of 
despair,  which  in  reality  he  teaches,  of  the  deepest  and  the 
most  fixed  despair.  The  dungeon  into  which  he  introduces 
his  captives  is  cold  and  low  ;  it  has  no  outlet :  no  key  called 
Promise  is  to  be  found  therein ;  the  sky,  indeed,  is  seen  above 
through  the  dome,  but  it  is  distant — dark — with  strange  and 
melancholy  stars,  and  but  one  hope,  like  a  cup  of  prison- 
water,  is  handed  round  among  the  dwellers  in  this  dreary 
abode — that  of  Death.  And  yet,  but  of  late  thousands  of 
our  young,  rising,  and  gifted  minds  were,  and  many  are  still, 
forsaking  the  free  atmosphere,  the  strait  but  onward  way,  and 
the  high-hung  star  of  hope,  and  Christianity,  for  this  dismal, 
insulated,  and  under-ground  abyss,  where  the  very  light  is  as 
darkness.  It  follows,  again,  that  humility  and  all  its  cognate 
virtues  are  mere  mistakes.  "  Trust  thyself — every  heart 
vibrates  to  that  iron  string."  A  greater  than  Emerson  said, 
two  thousand  years  ago,  "  Blessed  are  the  poor  in  spirit,  for 
theirs  is  the  kingdom  of  heaven;"  and  another  of  the  same 
school  said,  "When  ye  are  weak,  then  are  ye  strong."  We 
are  not  defending  a  false  or  voluntary  humility.  But  surely, 
unless  you  can  prove  that  all  strength,  and  purity,  and  peace, 
are  enclosed  in  yourself,  to  bow  before  the  higher — to  draw 
strength  from  the  stronger — to  worship  the  divine — is  the 
dictate  of  cultured  instinct,  as  well  as  of  common  sense. 
Almost  all  the  powers  and  elements  of  nature  combine  in 
teaching  man  the  one  great  simple  word,  "  Bend."  u  Bend," 


EMERSON.  287 


the  winds  say  it  to  the  tall  pines,  and  they  gaiu  the  curve  of 
their  magnificence  by  obeying.  "  Bend,"  gravitation  says  it 
to  the  earth,  as  she  sweeps  in  her  course  round  the  sun  ;  and 
she  knows  the  whisper  of  her  ruler,  and  stoops  and  bows 
before  the  skiey  blaze.  "  Bend,"  the  proud  portals  of  human 
knowledge  say  it  to  all  aspirants,  and  were  it  the  brow  of  a 
Bacon  or  a  Newton,  it  must  in  reverence  bow.  "  Bend,"  the 
doors,  the  ancient  doors  of  heaven  say  it,  in  the  music  of  their 
golden  hinges,  to  all  who  would  pass  therein ;  and  the  Son  of 
Man  himself,  although  he  could  have  prayed  to  his  Father, 
and  presently  obtained  twelve  legions  of  angels,  had  to  learn 
obedience,  to  suffer,  to  bow  the  head,  ere  as  a  King  of  Glory 
he  entered  in.  "  Trust  thyself."  No  ;  Christianity  says, 
"  Mistrust  thyself — trust  God.  Do  thy  humble  duty,  and 
call  the  while  on  the  lofty  help  that  is  above  thee."  Even 
Shelley,  a  far  more  gifted  mind  than  Emerson,  tells  us,  bor- 
rowing the  thought  from  Burke,  to  ''fear  ourselves,  and  love 
all  human-kind." 

It  follows,  finally,  that  there  seems  no  hope  to  us  from  the 
exclusive  and  idolatrous  devotion  to  nature  which  Emerson 
has  practised  and  recommends.  He,  appearing  to  believe  that 
nature  is  his  (nvn  work,  has  conned  its  pages  with  all  the 
fondness  which  a  young  author  feels  for  his  first  poems.  And 
yet  he  has  learned  from  it,  or  at  least  taught  us,  extremely 
little.  If  he  has,  as  he  says,  met  "  God  in  the  bush,"  why  no 
particulars  of  the  interview  ?  Why  no  intelligible  precept,  no 
new  law  from  that  "  burning  bush"  of  the  West  ?  Why  does 
nature,  in  his  hands,  remain  as  cold,  silent,  enigmatic,  and 
repulsive — we  mean  as  a  moral  teacher — as  ever  it  was  ? 
Why  does  its  "'old  silence"  remain  silent  still,  or  only  insult 
us  with  fragments  of  mysticism  and  echoes  of  blasphemy  ? 
Alas  !  Emerson's  "  Essays"  are  another  proof  of  what  Hazlitt, 
from  bitter  experience,  said  long  ago,  "  Neither  poetry  nor 
nature  are  sufficient  for  the  soul  of  man."  And  although 
Emerson  has,  with  more  sever  self-purgation,  if  not  with  a 
truer  heart,  approached  the  shrine,  he  has  derived,  or  at  least 
circulated,  quite  as  little  of  real  knowledge,  or  of  real  satis- 
faction and  peace,  as  the  honest  but  hapless  author  of  "  The 
Spirit  of  the  Age." 

The  fact  is  (and  we  are  grieved  to  announce  it),  this  writer 


388  MISCELLANEOUS    SKETCHES 


with  all  bis  talk  about  spiritualism  and  idealism,  seems  to  us, 
in  essence,  if  anything  at  all,  a  mere  materialist — believing 
not,  however,  in  the  wide  matter  of  suns  and  stars,  but  in  the 
sublimated  matter  of  his  proper  brain.  He  has  brought  the 
controversy  of  ages  to  a  point — the  point  of  his  own  head. 
This  he  claps  and  clasps,  and  says,  "  Talk  of  God,  Heaven, 
Jesus,  Shakspeare,  the  earth,  the  stars-^it's  all  here.'1'1  Even 
us,  not  long  ago,  we  heard  a  poor  woman,  in  fever,  declaring 
that  there  was  "  more  sense  in  her  head  than  in  all  the  world 
besides!"  And  into  what  wilds  have  some  of  his  followers, 
both  in  America  and  here,  wandered,  till,  in  search  of  their 
master,  they  have  lost  themselves.  One  of  them  will  make  an 
earth-heap  among  the  woods,  and  show  his  companions  how 
God  should  make  a  world.  Others  take  to  living  on  acorns 
and  water ;  and  one  lady,  of  some  abilities,  has  lately  written 
a  small  volume  of  poems,  in  which,  amid  many  other  symp- 
toms of  the  most  rabid  Emersonianism,  such  as  sneering  at 
the  power  and  influence  of  the  Bible,  magnifying  the  soul,  &c., 
she,  in  one  little  copy  of  verses,  avows  herself  a  worshipped 
of  the  Sun — it  being  the  epic,  we  suppose,  of  her  transcendent 
spirit ! 

It  is  high  time  that  all  such  egregious  nonsense  should  be 
exposed ;  and  we  only  regret  that  our  space  does  not  permit 
us  more  fully  at  present  to  expose  it»  We  "bide  our  time." 
And  we  can  speak  the  more  freely,  that  we  have  passed 
through  a  section  of  the  Emersonian  shadow  ourselves — never 
into  its  deepest  gloom,  but  along  the  outskirts  of  its  cold  and 
hopeless  darkness.  We,  however,  never  lost  our  faith  iu 
Jesus,  nor  regarded  Emerson's  notions  of  Him  with  any  other 
feelings  but  disgust  and  sorrow.  We  never  "  kissed  our 
hands  '  to  the  sun.  But  we  at  one  time  regarded  Emerson  as 
a  sincere  man,  astray  on  one  of  the  by-paths  from  the  road 
leading  up  to  the  "  City."  We  have  seen  reason  to  change 
our  mind,  and  to  say  of  him,  and  of  all  such,  "Beware  of  the 
Flatterer."  His  system,  to  our  knowledge,  has  shaken  belief, 
has  injured  morality,  has  poisoned  the  purest  natures,  has 
embittered  the  sweetest  tempers,  has  all  but  maddened  the 
strongest  minds,  has  been  for  years  a  thick  cosmical  cloud 
between  lofty  souls  and  the  God  of  their  childhood  and  their 
fathers,  has  not  even  led  to  that  poor,  beggarly,  outwardly 


NEALE    AND    BUNYAN.  289 


clean  life,  in  which  he  seems  to  believe  all  morality  to  consist 
(as  if  the  plagues  of  the  soul  were  not  infinitely  worse  than 
the  diseases  of  the  body),  and  has  led  to  life  "  without  hope 
and  without  God  in  the  world."  And  without  laying  all  the 
blame  of  this — and  it  has  been  the  experience  of  hundreds — 
upon  Emerson  himself,  we  do  advisedly  lay  it  upon  the  back 
of  his  heartless  and  hopeless  creed. 

After  all  this,  to  speak  of  Emerson's  genius  seems  mere 
impertinence.  It  is  little  to  the  point,  and,  besides,  has  often 
been  largely  descanted  on  by  us  and  others.  It  is  undoubtedly 
of  a  high  order.  If  he  cannot  interpret,  he  can  paint,  nature 
as  few  else  can.  He  has  watched  and  followed  all  her  motions 
like  a  friendly  spy.  He  has  the  deepest  egotistic  interest  in 
her.  He  appropriates  her  to  himself,  and  because  he  loves 
and  clasps,  imagines  that  he  has  made  her.  His  better  writ- 
ings seem  shaken,  sifted,  and  cooled  in  the  winds  of  the  Ame- 
rican autumn.  The  flush  on  his  style  is  like  the  red  hue  of 
the  Indian  summer  inscribed  upon  the  leaf.  One  of  the  most 
inconsistent  and  hopelessly  wrong  of  American  thinkers,  he 
is  the  greatest  of  American  poets.  We  refer  not  to  his  verse 
— which  is,  in  general,  woven  mist,  involving  little — but  to 
the  beautiful  and  abrupt  utterances  about  nature  in  his  prose. 
No  finer  things  about  the  outward  features,  and  the  transient 
meanings  of  creation,  have  been  said,  since  the  Hebrews,  than 
are  to  be  found  in  some  of  his  books.  But  he  has  never,  like 
them,  pierced  to  the  grand  doctrine  of  the  Divine  Personality 
and  Fatherhood. 


NO.  III.-OALE  AID  BUNYAK* 

WHAT  is  it,  it  has  often  been  asked,  which  gives  us  the  strong- 
est and  liveliest  idea  of  the  infinite  ?  Is  it  the  multitudinous 
ocean,  or  the  abyss  of  stars,  or  the  incomputable  sand-grains 

*  The  Pilgrim's  Progress  of  John  Bunyan,  for  the  Use  of  Children 
in  the  English  Church.  Edited  by  the  Rev.  J.  M.  NKALE,  M.A.,  War- 
den of  Sackville  College. 


290  MISCELLANEOUS    SKETCHES. 


upon  the  sea-shore?  No  :  these,  if  not  numerable  by  human 
arithmetic,  are  taken  up  by  imagination  as  "  but  a  little  thing." 
She  engulfs  them  easily,  and  continues  to  cry,  "  More,  more  ;" 
"  Give,  give."  We,  of  course,  can  only  speak  for  ourselves, 
but  certain  it  is  that  our  liveliest  notion  of  bottomless  depth 
and  boundless  extent,  is  derived  from  our  observation  of  the 
infinity  of  human  impudence.  That  is  a  breadth  without  a 
bound,  an  elevation  without  a  summit,  a  circumference  with- 
out a  centre,  a  length  without  a  limit.  We  are  perpetually, 
indeed,  led  to  imagine  that  we  are  nearing  its  bottom,  when 
lo  !  some  new  adventurous  genius  takes  another  plunge,  and 
discovers  a  lower  deep  beyond  the  lowest,  and  we  feel  that  the 
insolence,  bigotry,  and  folly  of  a  Neale,  leave  all  former 
absurdity  floundering  far  behind. 

This  edition  of  the  "  Pilgrim's  Progress"  is  unquestionably 
the  most  impudent  book  we  ever  read.  In  the  infinite  of  im- 
pudence, its  author  has  earned  a  place  similar  to  that  of  Sir 
William  Herschel  in  the  universe  of  stars :  like  him,  he  has 
outstripped  all  competitors ;  his  folly,  like  the  other's  genius, 
is  of  a  firmamental  magnitude,  and  becomes  magnificent  from 
its  very  originality  and  daring.  Mr.  Neale  has  accomplished 
the  poetical  paradox  :  he  has  "  gilded  refined  gold,  painted  the 
lily,  and  thrown  a  perfume  on  the  violet."  He  has  deliberate- 
ly sat  down  to  improve  upon  John  Bunyan — to  add  and  eke 
to  the  "Pilgrim's  Progress;"  he  has  converted  honest  John 
into  a  Puseyite,  and  changed  his  immortal  allegory  into  a 
vade-mecum  for  the  babes  and  sucklings  of  the  Tractarian 
school.  We  advise  him,  when  ho  has  leisure,  to  carry  out  his 
plan  as  follows  : — Let  him  proceed  to  make  Milton,  in  his 
"  Paradise  Lost,"  teach  passive  obedience  and  non-resistance; 
let  him,  as  a  slight  change,  insert  the  syllable  "  in  "  before  the 
title  of  Locke  on  "  Toleration;"  let  him  add  a  book  to  Cow- 
per's  "  Task,"  advocating  the  damnation  of  unbaptised  infants ; 
let  him  show  us  Young,  in  his  "  Night  Thoughts,"  defending 
t.ransubstantiation ;  let  him  alter  Don  Juan  to  St.  Juan,  and 
turn  Byron  into  a  devout  Methodist;  or  let  him  re- write 
i£  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin,"  and  show  Eva,  on  her  death-bed,  con- 
verted to  a  belief  in  the  divinity  of  the  cart-whip  and  the  auc- 
tion-block !  Not  one  of  these  would  be  a  grosser  insult  to  the 
respective  author,  or  to  the  public,  than  is  this  miserable 


NEALE    AND    BUNYAN.  291 


emasculation  of  Bunyan's  allegory.  Men  who  poison  wells  do 
so  generally  by  night,  and  by  stealth;  but  this  poor  creature 
sheds  his  small  venom  in  open  day,  and  raises  a  complacent 
cry  over  it,  as  if  he  had  done  some  good  and  noble  action  ! — 
Next  to  the  absurdity  and  positive  impiety  of  the  attempt  he 
makes  on  the  life  of  Bunyan's  glorious  book,  is  the  silly  and 
consequential  insolence  with  which  he  avows  and  defends  it. 

We  say  "  impiety,"  for  whatever  affects  the  integrity  of  one 
of  the  great  classics  of  the  world,  especially  if  that  classic  be  a 
religious  book,  amounts  to  impiety  and  sacrilege.  What 
should  we  think  of  one  who  should  thus  practise  on  the  Bible, 
who  should  intermeddle  with  the  sublime  argument  of  Job,  so 
as  to  give  it  a  different  turn  or  termination ;  who  should  add 
his  own  moral  to  Jotham's  fable  ;  intermingle  his  own  plati- 
tudes with  Isaiah's  divine  minstrelsy  ;  and  annex  his  own  ap- 
pendix to  the  abrupt  and  crag-like  close  of  Ezekiel's  prophecy  ? 
We  are  far  enough  from  placing  John  Bunyan  or  his  work  on 
the  same  level  with  the  Scriptures.  But  his  "  Pilgrim  "  has 
long  been  to  millions  a  minor  Bible — a  moon  circulating  round 
that  elder  orb.  It  has  lain  on  the  same  shelf  with  the  Scrip- 
tures, and  truly  been  supposed  to  breathe  the  same  spirit. — 
Any  attempt  to  underrate  it,  or  to  trifle  with  it,  or  to  mangle 
and  doctor  it,  is  sure  to  be  resented  almost  as  keenly  as  an  at- 
tempt to  add  to  or  diminish  from  the  full  and  rounded  glory 
of  the  Book  of  God. 

Mr.  Neale  does,  indeed,  begin  his  consummately  foolish  and 
impertinent  preface,  by  confessing  that  he  issues  "  the  present 
edition  of  the  '  Pilgrim's  Progress'  with  some  degree  of  anxi- 
ety"— a  feeling  which,  we  trust,  on  reflection,  will  be  ex- 
changed for  a  large  measure  of  remorse  and  shame.  He  pro- 
ceeds to  answer,  anticipatively,  some  objections  to  his  un- 
heard-of procedure ;  but,  ere  doing  this,  he  takes  care  to  in- 
form us,  that  he  "  has  nothing  to  say  to  those  professing  mem- 
bers of  the.  English  Church  who  would  make  the  theology  of 
Bunyan  their  own,"  and  that  "  more  than  one  English  priest 
has,  before  now,  honored  this,  his  great  work,  with  a  commen- 
tary." Honored!  A  good  idea!  A  country  parson,  never 
perhaps  heard  of  beyond  his  own  parish,  or  a  glib  city-lec- 
turer, or  a  stolid,  sleepy-headed  bishop,  honoring  one  of  the 
holiest,  truest,  and  most  imaginative  books  in  literature  with 


292  MISCELLANEOUS    SKETCHES. 


a  commentary  !  Let  us  next  hear  of  the  honor  Caryl  has  con- 
ferred on  Job,  Todd  on  Milton,  poor  Taafe  on  Dante,  and 
Ryiner  on  Shakspeare.  The  English  churchman  has  yet  to 
be  born  who  can  be  compared,  in  native  genius,  in  spiritual 
experience,  and  in  profound  piety,  with  the  Baptist  tinker,  or 
who  could,  as  from  a  height  above,  accord  him  honor.  The 
highest  honor  the  llev.  J.  M.  Neale  could  ever  confer  on  him, 
he  has  conferred — namely,  detraction  and  defilement ;  for,  in 
value  to  a  man  of  genius,  next  to  the  applause  of  a  demi-god, 
is  the  censure  or  the  insolent  patronage  of  a  dunce. 

There  are,  it  seems,  some  well-meaning  members  of  the 
English  Church,  who  "  look  upon  the  '  Pilgrim'  as  a  religious 
classic,  cannot  bear  the  idea  of  its  being  pulled  about !"  and 
who  ask,  "  Is  its  doctrine  so  very  false  ?  May  not  a  child 
read  it,  without  noticing  the  implied  errors  ?  Is  not  its  gene- 
ral end  and  aim*  so  excellent  that  minor  defects  may  very  well 
be  forgiven  ?"  But  no  !  Mr.  Neale  has  some  grave  objec- 
tions to  Bunyan's  theology.  Although  the  "  Pilgrim's  Pro- 
gress "  is  characterised  by  Coleridge — that  zealous  churchman 
— as  the  best  system  of  divinity  extant,  it  appears  to  Mr. 
Neale  to  swarm  with  damnable  heresies,  and  sins  both  of 
omission  and  commission.  And  what,  pray,  inquires  the 
alarmed  reader,  arc  these  ?  Has  Buuyan  denied  the  Trinity, 
or  the  divinity  of  Christ,  or  the  atonement,  or  the  necessity 
of  divine  grace  ?  Has  he  questioned  original  sin,  or  justifica- 
tion by  faith,  or  eternal  punishment  ?  No!  but  he  is  not  per- 
fectly orthodox,  according  to  the  Anglican  standard,  about 
baptism,  confirmation,  and  the  Lord's  Supper !  He  does  not 
believe  that  the  Holy  Ghost  is  given  at  baptism  to  every  child  ; 
that  it  is  renewed  by  the  imposition  of  the  bishop's  hands  at 
confirmation;  and  that  the  "blessed  Eucharist  is  the  chief 
means  by  which  the  life  thus  implanted,  and  thus  strengthened 
is  supported  and  perfected."  Bunyan — wicked  man  ! — has 
said  nothing  about  baptism  or  confirmation,  and  allows  one  of 
his  most  eminent  pilgrims — Faithful,  namely — to  pass  the 
house  Beautiful  without  entering  in  !  Moreover,  the  reader 
will  find  "  the  beginning  of  the  Christian  life  set  forth  again 
and  again  as  Conversion."  Many  other  parts  of  the  story  and 
of  the  dialogue  are  exceedingly  heterodox,  and,  to  crown  all, 
Bunyan  has  never  heard  of  the  Council  of  Chalcedon! 


NEALE    AND    BUNYAN.  293 


How,  then,  is  Mr.  Neale  to  deal  with  tins  dangerous  book, 
which  lays  so  little  stress  upon  outward  observances,  and  so 
much  upon  inward  change ;  which  is  so  heinously  charitable 
to  those  who  cannot  sit  down  with  others  at  the  Lord's  table, 
so  fond  of  repeating  the  paradox — "  except  a  man  be  convert 
ed,  and  become  as  a  little  child,  he  shall  in  no  wise  enter  tho 
kingdom  of  heaven'' — and  which  a  great  many  excellent  per- 
sons will  not  even  "  allow  in  their  houses  ?"  Shall  ho  not  put 
it  at  once  into  an  Oxford  Index  Expurgatorius  ?  or  agitate  for 
the  entire  suppression  of  all  but  its  Sanscrit  translation  ?  or 
hire  the  thunders  of  the  Vatican  to  crush  and  quell  it  ?  Not 
ho  !  He  will  act  a  more  generous  and  liberal  part.  He  will 
show  himself  to  be  a  lover  of  literature  and  genius,  and  will 
sacrifice  some  of  his  very  serious  scruples  of  conscience  to  that 
love.  That  has  been,  indeed,  so  strong  and  discriminating, 
that  it  has  enabled  him  to  see  very  considerable  merit  in  this 
heretical  work.  It  certainly  "  exerts  a  fascination  over  the 
minds  of  children."  Some  of  its  "  particular  passages"  are 
"  beautiful,"  one  is  "  worthy  (!  !  !)  of  St.  Bernard,"  and  there- 
fore he  is  "  thankful  that  such  a  book  exists."  And  then, 
what  a  glorious  plan  he  has  for  putting  it  all  right,  and  turn- 
ing the  heterodox  tinker  into  a  St.  Buuyan.  It  is  quite  quick 
and  magical.  "  Presto  !  begone  the  Baptist,  and  enter  the 
Bishop."  "  One  or  two  insertions,  a  few  transpositions,  and 
a  good  many  omissions,"  and  the  thing  is  done.  Suppose  we 
should  proceed,  according  to  Mr.  Neale's  principle,  to  operate 
on  the  Lord's  Prayer,  how  easily  we  could  prove  it  to  be  a 
prayer  to  the  pope,  ay,  or  to  the  devil !  The  printer  who 
should  omit  the  "  not"  in  the  seventh  commandment,  and  in- 
sert it  in  the  fourth,  and  should  so  transpose  the  ninth  and  the 
tenth  verses  of  the  20th  Exodus,  as  to  enjoin  men  to  rest  six 
days  and  to  labor  one,  would  be  but  a  type  of  thee,  0  !  J.  M. 
Neale,  thou  miserable  ninny  and  bigot  of  the  first  magnitude  ! 
He  is  a  little  sore,  however,  at  the  prospect  of  the  ridicule 
he  is  rather  sure  he  will  meet.  He  anticipates  that  his  under- 
taking will  be  compared  to  Bentley's  edition  of  Milton.  We 
can  assure  him  that  his  fears  on  this  point  are  quite  unneces- 
sary. Bentley's  book  is  a  "  folly  of  the  wise,"  and  showa 
learning  and  talent  which  only  the  wise  could  either  possess 
or  pervert.  Neale's  book  is  the  folly  of  ano  who,  in  Touch- 


294  MISCELLANEOUS    SKETCHES. 


stone's  language,  is  a  "  fool  positive,"  and  is  quite  character- 
istic of  such  an  inverted  genius.  Bentley  boldly  conjectured 
what  Milton  did  think,  but  did  not  write,  and  altered  accord- 
ingly. Neale  knows  what  Bunyan  did  not  think,  nor  write, 
nor  believe,  and  has  made  him  say  it  through  the  three  grand 
magical  operations  of  transposition,  insertion,  and  omission. 
But  what  need  we  say,  since  "  under  that  kind  of  ridicule  ho 
is  to  be  perfectly  easy  ?"  We  confess  that  we  envy  the  stu- 
pidity which  does  not  feel,  even  less  than  the  impudence  which 
provokes  an  expression  of  just  and  righteous  scorn.  But  he 
adds,  "  if,  as  I  believe,  the  work  in  its  original  state  cannot 
safely  be  put  into  the  hands  of  children,  and  if,  as  I  also  be- 
lieve, in  its  present  condition  it  can,  I  shall  have  done  so  good 
a  deed  for  Christ's  little  ones,  that  I  may  well  bear  a  laugh 
from  those  with  whom  literary  merits  atoue  for  religious  de- 
fects." As  if  all  who  laughed  at  him  and  his  book  were  per- 
sons disposed  to  tolerate  religious  defects  for  literary  merits ; 
as  if  the  "  Pilgrim's  Progress"  were  not  valued  by  one  large 
class  less  for  its  literary  merits,  than  as  a  beautiful  and  life- 
like expression  of  evangelical  truth — the  creed  of  Calvin,  il- 
lustrated by  the  genius  of  Shakspeare — and  as  if  that  class 
were  likely  to  approve  of  omissions,  transpositions,  and  inser- 
tions, which  extract  the  very  pith  and  marrow  of  the  book's 
belief!  How  Christ's  little  ones  in  the  English  Church  may 
relish  this  edition  we  cannot  tell ;  but  we  rather  think  that 
there  are  myriads  of  little  ones  in  Britain  and  America  who 
are  quite  able  to  resent  the  insertion  of  Neale's  nonsense  in 
their  old  favorite,  and  that,  speaking  of  the  public  at  large,  a 
"  dismal  universal  hiss  "  is  likely  to  reward  this  new  enact- 
ment of  "  Hamlet  "  with  the  part  of  Hamlet  omitted  by  spe- 
cial desire. 

"  Yet"  the  author  "  cannot  but  add  "  a  small  depreciatory 
snarl  at  the  book  he  is  victimising.  Its  style,  indeed,  he 
"  most  firmly  believes,"  is  "  on  the  whole  a  nervous  specimen 
of  pure  homely  Saxon;"  but  he  is  not  "  pledged" — who  ever 
wished  to  pledge  him  ? — to  "  admire  every  clause,  or  to  think 
that  not  a  word  could  be  changed  for  the  better."  "  Colloqui- 
alisms are  not  always  ease,  nor  is  vulgarity  strength."  Cer- 
tainly not,  any  more  than  superstition  is  piety,  or  baptism  re- 
generation, or  a  rabid  attachment  to  forms  real  religion  ;  but 


NEALE    AND    BUNYAN.  295 


all  genuine  lovers  of  literature  know  that  there  is  a  charm  even 
in  the  faults  of  great  works,  just  as  there  is  in  the  record  of  the 
foibles  and  personal  peculiarities  of  great  men,  and  they  would  as 
soon  in  a  portrait  of  Alexander  omit  the  mention  of  his  wry 
neck,  or  turn  Napoleon  and  Suwarrow  into  grenadiers  six  feet 
high,  as  meddle  with  one  characteristic  vulgarism  or  gramtaat- 
ical  slip  in  Bunyan  or  Shakspeare.  The  man  is  as  destitute 
of  taste  as  of  reverence,  who  stands  beside  a  masterpiece  of  ge- 
nius with  a  microscope  in  his  hand,  and  employs  his  leisure  in 
proving  that  the  works  of  man  are  inferior  to  those  of  God, 
by  discovering  its  invisible,  or  exaggerating  its  obvious,  de- 
fects. To  taste,  indeed,  Mr.  Neale  does  not  pretend,  but  to 
reverence  he  does  ;  and  we  ask  him,  in  its  name,  how  he  would 
like  the  same  treatment  applied  to  those  fathers  and  those  me- 
diaeval writers  he  and  his  party  admire  so  much,  and  whose 
inequalities  and  defects,  in  themselves  far  greater  than  those 
of  the  uneducated  Bunyan,  are  not  counterbalanced  by  a  twen- 
tieth part  of  his  merit  ? 

But,  unquestionably,  the  most  curious  paragraph  in  this  re- 
freshingly ridiculous  preface  is  the  one  that  commences 
thus  : — "  There  is  yet  one  objection.  The  moral  right  of  al- 
tering an  author's  works  is  denied  to  an  editor.  He  wrote  and 
published,  it  is  said,  what  he  believed  the  truth.  To  his  own 
Master  he  has  stood  or  has  fallen.  What  you  now  teach, 
and  teach  in  his  name,  he  would  have  regarded  as  falsehood  ; 
it  is  dishonest  to  use  his  influence,  his  talents,  his  popularity, 
for  the  purpose  of  overthrowing  his  opinions." 

This  seems  very  sound  reasoning.  Indeed,  Mr.  Neale  in 
personating,  though  only  for  a  sentence,  a  man  of  sense,  rises 
above  himself,  and  reminds  us  of  those  actors  who,  though 
previously  vulgar  and  stupid,  seem  to  acquire  gentility  with 
the  parts  of  the  gentleman,  and  wit  with  the  parts  of  the 
clever  characters  they  represent.  But  mark  how  he  answers 
it !  "A  reasonable  defence  is  found  in  the  following  consider- 
ation : — The  author,  whose  works  are  altered,  wished,  it  is  to 
be  assumed,  to  teach  the  truth.  In  the  editor's  judgment,  the 
alterations  have  tended  to  the  more  complete  setting  forth  that 
truth, — that  is,  to  the  better  accomplishment  of  the  author's 
design.  If  the  editor's  views  of  the  truth,  then,  are  correct, 
he  is  justified  in  what  he  does ;  if  they  are  false,  he  is  to  be 


296  MISCELLANEOUS    SKETCHES. 


blamed  for  originally  holding  them,  but  cannot  be  called  dis- 
honest for  making  his  author  speak  what  he  believes  that,  with 
more  knowledge,  the  author  would  have  said." 

It  has  been  our  fate  to  read  with  complicated  emotions  of 
pain,  pity,  and  weariness,  thousands  of  senseless  or  imperti- 
nent paragraphs.  But  we  doubt  whether,  on  the  whole,  we 
ever  encountered  such  a  master-stroke  of  absurdity  and  impu- 
dence as  the  above.  It  rises  to  the  sublime.  By  boldly 
plunging  into  the  bathos,  Mr.  Neale  finds  the  Alps  of  the  An- 
tipodes. 

The  thing  is  such  an  extraordinary  specimen  of  its  class,  as 
to  demand  rather  a  minute  dissection.  The  fungus  is  so  filthy, 
and  for  a  fungus  so  vast,  that  we  must  deal  with  it  as  a  whole. 
"  The  author,"  he  says,  "  whose  works  are  altered,  wished,  it 
may  be  assumed,  to  teach  the  truth."  Certainly;  but  did 
that  truth,  in  his  view,  include  the  semi-papal  notions  of  Mr. 
Neale?  Was  not  John  Bunyau,  with  all  his  catholicity,  a  de- 
cided Baptist  and  Dissenter?  "In  the  editor's  judgment," 
the  alterations  he  has  made  may  indeed  "  tend  to  the  more  com- 
plete setting  forth  of  that  truth  ;"  but  would  they  in  the  authors 
judgment  ?  This  is  the  question.  Now  it  is  clear  that  John  Bun- 
yan,  if  retaining  his  former  sentiments,  could  not  approve  of  Mr. 
N  's  tinkering.  And  who  has  told  our  Oxford  seer  that  Bunyan 
has  changed  them  ?  He  may  ;  but  we  pause,  and  shall  pause 
long  enough,  for  the  evidence.  "  If  the  editor's  views  of  the 
truth  are  correct,  he  is  justified  in  what  he  does."  Stop  a 
moment,  Mr.  Neale !  Suppose  you  were  what  you  are  not,  a 
sage  wiser  than  Socrates,  or  a  prophet  as  profoundly  inspired 
as  Isaiah,  would  that  give  you  any  right  to  intermeddle  with 
the  conscientious  convictions  even  of  a  child,  or  to  cut  and 
carve  on  the  poorest  book  which  earnestness  ever  issued  to  the 
world  ?  You  have  just  as  good  a  right  to  steal  a  man's  purse, 
or  to  mangle  his  person,  as  to  mutilate,  after  such  a  fashion, 
his  book.  "  If  they  are  false,  he  is  to  be  blamed  for  originally 
holding  them;  but  cannot  be  called  dishonest  for  making  hi& 
author  speak  what  he  believes  that,  with  more  knowledge,  the 
author  would  have  said."  As  to  Mr.  Neale's  original  views  of 
confirmation — and  we  care  for  this  just  as  little  as  the  general 
public — his  holding  them  at  least  can  add  nothing  to  the 
weight  or  value  of  their  evidence.  But  neither  we  nor  the 


NEALE     AND    BUNYAN.  297 


public  will  endure  that  they  shall  be  put  into  the  mouth  of 
John  Bunyan,  and  even  seek  to  share  in  the  immortality  of 
the  chcf-cFcRUVre  of  his  genius.  We  feel  "  jealous  with  a  godly 
jealousy"  over  that  book  ;  and,  without  accusing  Mr.  Neale  of 
dishonesty  in  this  abortive  attempt,  we  do  accuse  him  of  igno- 
rance of  the  public  feeling  and  taste,  of  gross  misappreciation 
of  his  author,  of  cool  impertinence,  warm  bigotry,  and  of  a  stu- 
pidity as  dense  as  it  is  unconscious.  He,  forsooth,  "  believes 
that,  with  more  knowledge,  Bunyan  would  have  said"  the 
same  with  himself !  How  easy  it  were  for  hundreds  to  make 
a  similar  statement !  We  are  certain  that,  while  J.  M.  Nealc 
and  Henry  of  Exeter  humbly  think  that,  with  their  light  Bun- 
yan would  have  now  been  a  high  churchman,  Carlyle  imagines 
that  he  would  have  been  a  Sartorist ;  Parker,  that  he  would 
have  been  a  pilgrim  on  that  wretched  path  of  "  Christianity 
without  facts" — a  path  which  is  recognised  neither  by  heaven 
nor  hell ;  Dr.  Candlish  that  he  would  have  been  a  devoted 
friend  of  the  Free  Church ;  Macaulay,  that  he  would  have 
been,  like  himself,  on  religious  matters,  a  nothing-at-all ;  and 
more  reasonably  the  Milton  Club,  that  he  would  have  been  an 
honorary  member  with  them.  How  this  age  might  have  altered 
the  mould  and  shaped  the  fashion  of  a  mind  like  Bunyan's,  it 
is  hard  to  conjecture ;  but  we  rather  surmise  that  Puseyism 
would  have  been  his  last  resort,  and  that  at  all  events  he  would 
now  say,  were  the  apparition  of  this  edition  of  the  "  Pilgrim's 
Progress"  to  flash  on  his  view,  "  Scott  I  know,  Montgomery 
and  Cheever  I  know,  but,  Neale,  who  art  thou  ?" 

We  have  said  more  than  enough  of  this  work  and  its  author, 
and  shall  forbear  to  enlarge  on  the  manner  in  which  he  has  ex- 
ecuted its  intolerable  design.  Suffice  it  that  he  has  dug  a  well 
before  the  wicket-gate — kicked  Sinai  out  of  his  road — spirited 
old  Worldly  Wiseman  away — altered  the  situation  of  the 
cross — given  Christian  tivo  burdens,  &c.  &c.  &c. — in  short, 
written  himself  down  an  ass,  in  characters  so  large  and  legible, 
that  Dogberry  himself  might  read  them  as  he  ran. 

Apologising  to  our  readers  for  dwelling  thus  long  on  such  a 
production — and  our  only  apology  is  the  unique  magnitude  of  the 
impertinence,  and  the  light  it  casts  on  the  notions  and  feelings 
of  a  large  ecclesiastical  party,  who  have  it  in  their  heart  to 
treat  all  the  great  protesting  literature  of  the  past,  including 


298  MISCELLANEOUS    SKETCHES. 

the  Bible  itself,  as  one  of  their  smallest  creatures  has  treated 
the  "  Pilgrim's  Progress" — we  propose  to  spend  the  short 
remainder  of  this  paper  in  examining  a  question  which  springs 
naturally  out  of  its  subject,  and  which  is  of  considerable  prac- 
tical importance.  It  is  this  :  What  is  the  legitimate  province 
and  prerogative  of  an  editor,  in  re-issuing  classical  and  stan- 
dard works  ?  What  are  the  conditions  and  proper  limits  of 
the  power  which  he  assumes,  or  which  is  conceded  to  him,  over 
his  subject  authors  ? 

There  are  difficulties  connected  with  these  questions,  and 
perhaps  the  following  remarks  may  not  be  sufficient  to  obviate 
them  all.  We  must,  however,  state  them  : — An  editor,  then, 
of  course,  is  bound  to  preserve  with  extreme  solicitude  the 
text  of  his  author,  exactly  as  that  author  left  it.  He  is  not, 
like  Bentley,  to  exercise  his  ingenuity  in  finding  out  new  read- 
ings, which,  in  his  judgment,  are  improvements.  There  were 
no  end  to  such  a  system,  were  it  once  begun,  and  its  injustice 
to  the  author  is  obvious.  Indeed,  we  value  Bentley's  edition 
of  Milton  as  being  the  reductio  ad  absurdum  of  the  system 
commentators  have  so  often  adopted  of  cutting  and  carving, 
glossing  and  annotating,  upon  the  great  writers  of  the  past  It 
is  ridiculous  to  see  the  airs  of  superiority  assumed  by  some 
of  these  wiseacres,  while  dealing  with  the  works  of  men  infi- 
nitely superior  to  themselves.  How  charily  they  praise  the 
most  marked  and  striking  beauties  !  How  dignified  they  re- 
buke !  How  condescending  their  patronage  !  How  they  ran- 
sack the  stores  of  their  learning  to  prove  their  author  a  splen- 
did plagiarist,  and  what  an  edifying  contempt  do  they  discover 
for  all  who  have  gone  before  them  in  the  same  trade  of  small 
word-catching  and  detection  of  petty  larceny !  We  bid  any 
one  who  doubts  the  accuracy  of  this  description  to  turn  to 
Todd's  edition  of  Milton — otherwise  a  most  praiseworthy 
book — and  glance  at  the  notes  of  the  editor,  Hurd,  Dyce, 
Warton,  and  twenty  more,  jostling  against  each  other  at  the 
foot  of  the  page,  till  almost  every  thought  and  image  is  traced 
to  other  writers,  often  on  the  most  contemptibly  small  evidence, 
and  till  the  text  appears  literally  smothered  under  the  weight 
of  the  conjectures,  quotations,  misplaced  learning,  and  irrele- 
vant discussions  of  the  well-meaning,  but  wofully-misemployed, 
commentators. 


NEALE    AND    BUNYAN.  299 


In  all  our  classics,  there  occur  passages  unworthy  of  their 
genius,  either  from  their  weakness  or  their  wickedness.  Now, 
what  are  editors  to  do  with  these  ?  Some  will  say  that  they 
are  not  responsible  for  them,  and  should  therefore  print  them 
as  they  are,  perhaps  under  an  accompanying  protest.  This, 
we  think,  however,  springs  from  a  false  and  mechanical  notion 
of  what  an  editor  is.  His  office  is  not  that  of  a  mere  printer 
or  amanuensis.  We  suppose  him  accepting  the  task  volunta- 
rily, and  discharging  it  as  a  guardian  alike  of  his  author's 
fame  and  of  his  own  character.  We  have  admitted  above, 
that  there  is  a  certain  charm  connected  with  even  the  faults  of 
good  writers,  but  this  is  true  only  when  these  are  intermixed 
with  beauties.  There  are,  on  the  other  hand,  pieces  entirely 
and  disgracefully  bad  as  literary  compositions ;  and  why 
should  such  big  blots  be  stereotyped,  especially  if  they  are 
such  as  cast  no  peculiar  light  upon  the  author's  idiosyncrasy, 
nor  mark  definitely  any  stage  either  in  the  process  or  the  de- 
cline of  his  mind  ?  An  honest  editor  (if  the  plan  of  his  pub- 
lication at  all  permit)  will  silently  drop  such  productions  from 
the  list. 

But  his  path  becomes  far  more  clear  in  reference  to  those 
writings  in  which  vice  or  infidelity  is  openly  and  offensively 
exhibited.  Here  his  moral  sense  and  religious  feelings  unite 
with  his  literary  taste  in  demanding  the  use  of  the  knife. — 
What  man,  that  regards  his  own  character,  would  edit  some 
of  those  beastly  miscellanies  in  verse  by  which  Swift  has  dis- 
graced his  talents,  and  pushed  himself  almost  beyond  the  pale 
of  humanity,  or  the  Merry  Muses  of  poor  Burns,  or  the  blind 
and  raving  blasphemies  of  "  Queen  Mab  ?"  Such  things,  j£ 
may  be  said,  are  valuable  as  illustrating  peculiar  trai£$-*m 
eminent  characters,  or  certain  stages  in  their  moral  histo'ry, 
and  should,  therefore,  be  preserved.  Well,  be  it  so ;  only  let 
us  be  exempted  from  the  sordid  and  disgusting  task  of  storing 
them  up  in  those  moral  museums  where  alone  such  detestable 
abortions  are  in  place,  or  can  hope  to  remain  for  ever.  The 
true  editor  will  not  shrink  from  coarseness,  but  he  will  from 
corruption.  He  will  distinguish  between  faults  which  are 
characteristic  of  an  age,  and  wilful  insults  to  good  feeling,  or 
cold,  settled  attempts  to  sap  the  principles  of  morality,  as  well 
as  between  the  language  of  doubt  and  darkness,  and  that  of 


300  MISCELLANEOUS    SKETCHES. 


aggressive  and  insolent  blasphemy.  There  is  at  present  a  rage 
of  genius-worship  which  would  go  the  length  of  preserving  the 
very  foam  of  its  frenzy,  and  the  very  slime  of  its  sin ;  and 
there  are  those  who  insist  that  productions  which  the  men 
themselves  regretted  and  sought  to  suppress  in  their  life-time, 
and  on  which,  now,  it  may  be,  they  look  back  with  shame  and 
horror,  shall  be  bound  up  in  the  bundle  of  their  better  and  im 
perishable  works.  These  people  are  constantly  prating  of  the 
earnestness  of  Shelley,  for  example,  and  asking — Should  even 
the  mistaken  effusions  of  such  a  man  be  withheld  from  tho 
world  ?  We  say,  Yes,  if  they  are  rather  the  ravings  of  Philip 
drunk,  than  the  sincere  outpourings  of  Philip  sober ;  if,  more- 
over, they  are  calculated  not  only  to  evince,  but  to  circulate 
mental  inebriety,  and  if,  not  satisfied  with  expressing  his  faith, 
they  grossly  misrepresent,  foully  belie,  and  fiercely  insult  the 
faith  of  the  Christian  world.  We  are  far,  indeed,  from  advo- 
cating state  prosecutions  for  blasphemy ;  we  think  them  ma- 
chines of  unjust  power,  at  once  cruel  and  clumsy ;  nor  will 
we  be  suspected  of  undue  straitlacedness  or  of  bigotry  at  all ; 
but  we  would  have  public  opinion  brought  to  bear,  with  all  its 
weight,  upon  the  subject.  We  would  seek  to  crush  such  un- 
worthy memorials  of  genius  under  the  silence  of  universal  con- 
tempt or  pity.  We  do  not  wish  them  mutilated  nor  extin- 
guished ;  we  wish  them  preserved ;  but  preserved  as  other 
monstrosities  are  preserved,  in  secluded  corners,  on  lofty 
shelves,  for  the  contemplation  of  those  in  whom  curiosity  over- 
powers disgust,  and  who  can  wring  a  lesson  and  a  moral  even 
from  things  abominable  and  unutterable.  We  are  irresistibly 
reminded  of  the  lines  of  Milton  in  his  "  Battle  of  the  An- 
gels "  :— 

"  I  might  relate  of  thousands,  and  their  names 
Eternise  here  on  earth ;  but  those  elect 
Angels,  contented  with  their  fame  in  heaven, 
Seek  not  the  praise  of  men  :     The  other  sort 
In  might  though  wondrous  and  in  acts  of  war, 
Nor  of  renown  less  eager,  yet  by  doom 
Cancell'd  from  heaven,  and  sacred  memory, 
Nameless  in  dark  oblivion  let  them  dwell. 
For  strength  from  truth  divided,  and  from  just- 
Illaudable,  nought  merits  but  dispraise 
And  ignominy  ;  yet  to  glory  aspires 
Vain  glorious,  and  through  infamy  seeks  fame  : 
Therefore  eternal  silence  fe  their  doom." 


EDMUND    BURKE.  301 


NO.    IV.-EDMUND    BURKE. 

ALL  hail  to  Edmund  Burke,  the  greatest  and  least  appre- 
ciated man  of  the  eighteenth  century,  even  as  Milton  had  been 
the  greatest  and  least  appreciated  man  of  the  century  before  ! 
Each  century,  in  fact,  bears  its  peculiarly  great  man,  and  as 
certainly  either  neglects  or  abuses  him.  Nor  do  after  ages 
always  repair  the  deficiency.  For  instance,  between  the  writ- 
ing of  the  first  and  the  second  sentences  of  this  paper,  wo 
have  happened  to  take  up  a  London  periodical,  which  has 
newly  come  in,  and  have  found  Burke  first  put  at  the  feet  of 
Fox,  and,  secondly,  accused  of  being  actuated  in  all  his  politi- 
cal conduct  by  two  objects — those  of  places  and  pensions  for 
himself  and  his  family  ;  so  that  our  estimate  of  him,  although 
late,  may  turn  out,  on  the  whole,  a  "  word  in  season."  It  is, 
at  all  events,  refreshing  for  us  to  look  back  from  the  days  of 
a  Derby  and  a  Biographer  Russell,  to  those  of  the  great  and 
eloquent  Burke,  and  to  turn  from  the  ravings  of  the  "  Latter- 
Day  Pamphlets,"  to  the  noble  rage  and  magnificent  philippics 
of  a  "  Regicide  Peace." 

First  of  all,  in  this  paper,  we  feel  ourselves  constrained  to 
proclaim  what,  even  yet,  is  not  fully  understood — Burke's  un- 
utterable superiority  to  all  his  parliamentary  rivals.  It  was 
not  simply  that  he  was  above  them  as  one  bough  in  a  tree  is 
above  another,  but  above  them  as  the  sun  is  above  the  top  of 
the  tree.  He  was  "  not  of  their  order."  He  had  philosophic 
intellect,  while  they  had  only  arithmetic.  He  had  genius, 
while  they  had  not  even  fancy.  He  had  heart,  while  they  had 
only  passions.  He  had  widest  and  most  comprehensive  views  ; 
their  minds  had  little  real  power  of  generalisation.  He  had 
religion ;  most  of  them  were  infidels  of  that  lowest  order,  who 
imagine  that  Christianity  is  a  monster,  bred  between  priest- 
craft and  political  expediency.  He  loved  literature  with  his 
inmost  soul ;  they  (Fox  on  this  point  must  be  excepted)  knew 
little  about  it,  and  cared  less.  In  a  word,  they  were  men  of 
their  time ;  he  belonged  to  all  ages,  and  his  mind  was  as 
catholic  as  it  was  clear  and  vast. 


302  MISCELLANEOUS    SKETCHES. 


Contrast  the  works  and  speeches  of  the  men !  Has  a  sen- 
tence of  Pitt's  ever  been  quoted  as  a  maxim  ?  Does  one  pas- 
sage of  Fox  appear  in  even  our  common  books  of  elocutionary 
extracts  ?  Are  Sheridan's  flights  remembered  except  for  their 
ambitious  and  adventurous  badness  ?  Unless  one  or  two 
showy  climaxes  of  Grattan  and  Curran,  what  else  of  them  is 
extant  ?  How  different  with  Burke.  His  works  are  to  this 
hour  burning  with  genius,  and  swarming  with  wisdom.  You 
cannot  open  a  page,  without  finding  either  a  profound  truth 
expressed  in  the  shortest  and  sharpest  form,  looking  up  at 
you  like  an  eye ;  or  a  brilliant  image  flashing  across  with  the 
speed  and  splendor  of  a  meteor ;  or  a  description,  now  grotes- 
que, and  now  gorgeous ;  or  a  literary  allusion,  cooling  and 
sweetening  the  fervor  of  the  political  discussion ;  or  a  quota- 
tion from  the  poets,  so  pointed  and  pat,  that  it  assumes  the 
rank  of  an  original  beauty.  Burke's  writing  is  almost  un- 
rivalled for  its  combination  and  dexterous  interchange  of  ex- 
cellences. It  is  by  turns  statistics,  metaphysics,  painting, 
poetry,  eloquence,  wit,  and  wisdom.  It  is  so  cool  and  so 
warm,  so  mechanical  and  so  impulsive,  so  measured  and  so 
impetuous,  so  clear  and  so  profound,  so  simple  and  so  rich. 
Its  sentences  are  now  the  shortest,  and  now  the  longest ;  now 
bare  as  Butler,  and  now  figured  as  Jeremy  Taylor ;  now  con- 
versational, and  now  ornate,  intense,  and  elaborate  in  the  high- 
est degree.  He  closes  many  of  his  paragraphs  in  a  rushing 
thunder  and  fiery  flood  of  eloquence,  and  opens  the  next  as 
calmly  as  if  he  had  ceased  to  be  the  same  being.  Indeed,  he 
is  the  least  monotonous  and  manneristic  of  modern  writers, 
and  in  this,  as  in  so  many  other  respects,  excels  such  authors 
as  Macaulay  and  Chalmers,  who  are  sometimes  absurdly  com- 
pared to  him.  He  has,  in  fact,  as  we  hinted  above,  three,  if 
not  four  or  five,  distinct  styles,  and  possesses  equal  mastery 
over  all.  He  exhibits  specimens  of  the  law-paper  style,  in  his 
articles  of  charge  against  Warren  Hastings ;  of  the  calm,  sober, 
uncolored  argument,  in  his  "  Thoughts  on  the  present  Discon- 
tents;" of  the  ingenious,  high-finished,  but  temperate  philoso- 
phical essay,  in  his  "  Sublime  and  Beautiful;"  of  the  flushed 
and  fiery  diatribe,  here  storming  into  fierce  scorn  and  invec- 
tive, and  their  soaring  into  poetical  eloquence,  in  his  "  Letter 
to  a  Noble  Lord,"  and  in  his  "  Kegicide  Peace;"  and  of  a 


EDMUND    BURKE.  303 


style  combining  all  these  qualities,  and  which  he  uses  in  his 
Speech  on  the  Nabod  of  Arcot's  debts,  and  in  his  "  Reflec- 
tions on  the  French  Revolution."  Thus  you  may  read  a  hun- 
dred pages  of  him  at  once,  without  finding  any  power  but  pure 
intellect  at  work,  and  at  other  times  every  sentence  is  starred 
with  an  image,  even  as  every  moment  of  some  men's  sleep  is 
spiritualised  by  a  dream  ;  and,  in  many  of  them,  figures  clus- 
ter and  crowd  upon  each  other.  It  is  remarkable  that  his 
imagination  becomes  apparently  more  powerful  as  he  draws 
near  the  end  of  his  journey.  The  reason  of  this  probably 
was  :  he  became  more  thoroughly  in  earnest  towards  the  close. 
Till  the  trial  of  Warren  Hastings,  or  even  on  to  the  outbreak 
of  the  French  Revolution,  he  was  a  volcano  speaking  and 
snorting  out  fire  at  intervals — an  Etna  at  ease;  but  from  these 
dates  he  began  to  pour  out  incessant  torrents  of  molten  lava 
upon  the  wondering  nations.  Figures  arc  a  luxury  to  cool 
thinkers;  they  are  a  necessity  to  prophets.  The  Isaiah,  Jere- 
miah, and  Ezc-kiel  have  no  choice.  Their  thought  MUST  come 
forth  with  the  fiery  edge  of  metaphor  around  it. 

Let  us  look,  in  the  course  of  the  remarks  that  follow,  to  the 
following  points — to  Burke's  powers,  to  his  possible  achieve- 
ments, to  his  actual  works,  to  his  oratory,  to  his  conversation, 
to  his  private  character,  to  his  critics,  and  to  the  question, 
what  has  been  the  result  of  his  influence  as  a  writer  and  a 
thinker  ? 

1.  We  would  seek  to  analyse  shortly  his  powers.  These 
were  distinguished  at  once  by  their  variety,  comprehensiveness, 
depth,  harmony,  and  brilliance.  He  was  endowed  in  the  very 
"prodigality  of  heaven"  with  genius  of  a  creative  order,  with 
boundless  fertility  of  fancy,  with  piercing  acuteness  and  com- 
prehension of  intellect,  with  a  tendency  leading  him  irresisti- 
bly down  into  the  depths  of  every  subject,  and  with  an  elo- 
quence at  once  massive,  profuse,  fiery,  and  flexible.  To  these 
powers  he  united,  what  are  not  often  found  in  their  company, 
slow  plodding  perseverance,  indomitable  industry,  and  a  cau- 
tious, balancing  disposition.  We  may  apply  to  him  the  words 
of  Scripture,  "  He  could  mount  up  with  wings  as  an  eagle, 
he  could  run  and  not  be  weary,  he  could  ivalk  and  not  be 
faint."  Air,  earth,  and  the  things  under  the  earth,  were 
equally  familiar  to  him  ;  and  you  are  amazed  to  sec  how  easily 


304  MISCELLANEOUS    SKETCHES. 


he  can  fold  up  the  mighty  wings  which  had  swept  the  ether, 
and  "knit"  the  mountain  to  the  sky,  and  turn  to  mole-like 
minings  in  the  depths  of  the  miry  clay,  which  he  found  it 
necessary  also  to  explore.  These  vast  and  various  powers  he 
had  fed  with  the  most  extensive,  most  minute,  most  accurate, 
most  artistically  managed  reading,  with  elaborate  study,  with 
the  closest  yet  kindliest  observation  of  human  nature,  and 
with  free  and  copious  intercourse  with  all  classes  of  men.  And 
to  inspirit  and  inflame  their  action,  there  were  a  profound 
sense  of  public  duty,  ardent  benevolence,  the  passions  of  a 
hot  but  generous  heart,  and  a  strong-felt,  although  uncanting 
and  unostentatious  piety. 

2.  His  possible  achievements.  To  what  was  a  man  like 
this,  who  could  at  once  soar  and  delve,  overtop  the  mountains, 
skim  the  surface,  and  explore  the  mine,  not  competent  ?  He 
was,  shall  we  say,  a  mental  camelopard — patient  as  the  camel, 
and  as  the  leopard  swift  and  richly  spotted.  We  have  only  in 
his  present  works  the  fragments  of  his  genius.  Had  he  not  in 
some  measure, 

"  Born  for  the  universe,  narrow'd  his  mind, 
And  to  party  given  up  what  was  meant  for  mankind," 

what  works  on  general  subjects  had  he  written  !  It  had  been, 
perhaps,  a  system  of  philosophy,  merging  and  kindling  into 
poetry,  resembling  33rown's  "  Lectures,"  but  informed  by  a 
more  masculine  genius ;  or  it  had  been,  perhaps,  a  treatise  on 
the  Science  of  Politics,  viewed  on  a  large  and  liberal  scale ; 
or  it  had  been,  perhaps,  a  history  of  his  country,  abounding  in 
a  truer  philosophy  and  a  more  vivid  narrative  than  Hume, 
and  in  pictures  more  brilliant  than  Macaulay's ;  or  it  had 
been,  perhaps,  a  work  on  the  profounder  principles  of  litera- 
ture or  of  art;  or  it  had  been,  perhaps — for  this,  too,  was  in 
his  power — some  strain  of  solemn  poetry,  rising  higher  than 
Akenside  or  Thomson ;  or  else  some  noble  argument  or  apo- 
logy for  the  faith  that  was  in  him  in  the  blessed  religion  of 
Jesus.  Any  or  all  of  these  tasks  we  believe  to  have  been 
thoroughly  within  the  compass  of  Burke's  universal  mind, 
had  his  lot  been  otherwise  cast,  and  had  his  genius  not  been 
so  fettered  by  circumstance  and  subject,  that  he  seems  at 
times  a  splendid  generaliser  in  chains. 


EDMUND    BURKE.  305 


3.  These  decided  views,  as  to  the  grand  possibilities  of  this 
powerful  spirit,  must  not  be  permitted  to  blind  us  to  what  he 
has  actually  done.  This,  alike  in  quantity  and  quality,  chal- 
lenges our  wonder.  Two  monster  octavos  of  his  works  are 
lying  before  us ;  and  we  believe  that,  besides,  there  is  extant 
matter  from  his  pen  equal  to  another  volume.  What  strikes 
you  most  about  the  quality  of  his  writing,  is  the  amazing  rest- 
lessness and  richness  of  his  thought.  His  book  is  an  ant-hill 
of  stirring,  swarming,  blackening  ideas  and  images.  His  style 
often  reposes — his  mind  never.  Hall  very  unjustly  accuses 
him  of  amplification.  There  are,  indeed,  a  few  passages  of 
superb  amplification  sprinkled  through  his  writings  ;  but  this 
is  rarely  his  manner,  and  you  never,  as  in  some  writers,  see  a 
thought  small  as  the  body  of  a  fly  suspended  between  the 
wiugs  of  an  eagle.  He  has  too  much  to  say  to  care  in  general 
about  expanding  or  beating  it  thin.  Were  he  dallying  long 
with,  or  seeking  to  distend,  an  image,  a  hundred  more  would 
become  impatient  for  their  turn.  Foster  more  truly  remarks, 
"  Burke's  sentences  are  pointed  at  the  end — instinct  with 
pungent  sense  to  the  last  syllable ;  they  are  like  a  charioteer's 
whip,  which  not  only  has  a  long  and  effective  lash,  but  cracks 
and  inflicts  a  still  smarter  sensation  at  the  end.  They  are 
like  some  serpents,  whose  life  is  said  to  be  fiercest  in  the 
tail."  It  is  a  mind  full  to  overflowing,  pouring  out,  now 
calmly  and  now  in  tumult  and  heat,  now  deliberately  and 
now  in  swift  torrents,  its  thoughts,  feelings,  acquirements,  and 
speculations.  This  rich  restlessness  might  by  and  by  become 
oppressive,  were  it  not  for  the  masterly  ease  of  manner  and 
the  great  variety,  as  well  as  quantity,  of  thinking.  He  never 
harps  too  long  on  one  string.  He  is  perpetually  making 
swift  and  subtle  transitions  from  the  grave  to  the  gay,  from- 
the  severe  to  the  lively,  from  facts  to  figures,  from  statistics 
to  philosophical  speculations,  from  red-hot  invective  to  caustic 
irony,  from  the  splendid  filth  of  his  abuse  to  the  flaming  cata- 
racts of  his  eloquence  and  poetry.  His  manner  of  writing 
has  been  accused  of  "  caprice,"  but  unjustly.  Burke  was  a 
great  speculator  on  style,  and  was  regulated  in  most  of  its 
movements  by  the  principles  of  art,  as  well  as  impelled  by  the 
force  of  genius.  He  held,  for  instance,  that  every  great  sen- 
tence or  paragraph  should  contain  a  thought,  a  sentiment,  and 


306  MISCELLANEOUS    SKETCHES. 


an  image ;  and  we  find  this  rule  attended  to  in  all  his  more 
elaborate  passages.  He  was  long  thought  a  "  flowery  and 
showy"  writer,  and  contrasted,  by  Parr  and  others,  unfavor- 
ably with  such  writers  as  Macintosh  and  even  Paine.  Few 
now  will  have  the  hardihood  to  reiterate  .such  egregious  non- 
sense. His  flowers  were,  indeed,  numerous ;  but  they  sprang 
out  naturally,  and  were  the  unavoidable  bloom  of  deep  and 
noble  thought.  We  call  the  foam  of  a  little  river  "  froth," 
that  of  Niagara,  or  the  ocean,  "  spray."  Burke's  imagination 
was  the  giant  spray  of  a  giant  stream,  and  his  fancy  resembled 
the  rainbows  which  often  appear  suspended  in  it.  Besides  all 
this,  he  had  unlimited  command  of  words  and  allusions,  culled 
from  every  science,  and  art,  and  page  of  history ;  and  this  has 
rendered,  and  will  ever  render,  his  writings  legible  by  those 
who  care  very  little  for  his  political  opinions,  and  have  slender 
interest  in  the  causes  he  won  or  lost.  His  faults  were  not 
numerous,  although  very  palpable.  He  cannot  always  reason 
with  calm  consecutiveness.  He  sometimes  permits,  not  so 
much  his  imagination  as  his  morbidly  active  intellect  and  his 
fierce  passions,  to  run  him  into  extravagance.  He  lays  often 
too  much  stress  upon  small  causes,  although  this  sprung  from 
what  was  one  of  his  principal  powers — that  of  generalising 
from  the  particular,  and,  Cuvier-like,  seeing  entire  mammoths 
in  small  and  single  bones.  He  is  occasionally  too  truculent 
in  his  invective,  and  too  personal  in  his  satire.  His  oracular 
tone  is  sometimes  dogmatic  and  offensive;  and  he  frequently 
commits  errors  of  taste,  especially  when  his  descriptions  verge 
upon  the  humorous ;  for,  Irishman  though  he  was,  his  wit  and 
humor  were  not  quite  equal  to  his  other  powers. 

We  select  three  from  among  his  productions  for  short  spe- 
cial criticism  :  his  "  Speech  on  the  Nabob  of  Arcot's  Debts," 
his  "  Reflections  on  the  French  Revolution,"  and  his  "  Letters 
on  a  Regicide  Peace."  The  first  is  probably  the  most  com- 
plete oration  in  literature.  Henry  Rogers,  indeed,  prefers 
the  speeches  of  Demosthenes,  as  higher  specimens  of  pure 
oratory ;  and  so  they  are,  if  you  take  oratory,  in  a  limited 
sense,  as  the  art  of  persuasion  and  immediate  effect.  But 
Burke's  speech,  if  not  in  this  sense  equal  to  the  "  Pro  Coro- 
na," even  as  Milton's  "  Areopagitica"  is  not  in  this  sense 
equal  to  Sheridan  on  the  "  Begum  Charge,"  is,  in  all  other 


EDMUND    BURKE.  307 


elements  which  go  to  constitute  the  excellence  of  a  composi- 
tion, incomparably  superior.  You  see  a  great  mind  meeting 
with  a  great  subject,  and  intimate  with  it  in  all  its  length,  and 
breadth,  and  depth,  and  thickness;  here  diving  down  into  its 
valleys,  and  there  standing  serene  upon  its  heights ;  here 
ranging  at  ease  through  its  calms,  and  there,  witli  tyrant 
nerve,  ruling  its  storms  of  passion  and  harrowing  interest. 
The  picture  of  Hyder  Ali,  and  of  the  "  Cloud"  which  burst 
upon  the  plains  of  the  Carnatic,  has  been  subjected  to 
Brougham's  clumsy  and  captious  criticism,  but  has  come  out 
unscathed ;  and  we  venture  to  say  that  in  massive,  unforced 
magnificence  it  remains  unsurpassed.  There  is  no  trick,  no 
heaving  effort,  no  "  double,  double,  toil  and  trouble,"  as  in 
many  of  Lord  Brougham's  own  elaborate  passages.  The 
flight  is  as  calm  and  free,  as  it  is  majestic  and  powerful ; 

"  Sailing  with  supreme  dominion, 
Through  the  azure  deep  of  air." 

His  "  Reflections"  was  certainly  the  most  powerful  pamphlet 
ever  written,  if  pamphlet  it  can  be  called,  which  is  only  a  pam- 
phlet in  form,  but  a  book  in  reality.  It  should  have  been 
called  a  "  Reply  to  the  French  Revolution."  Etna  had 
spoken,  and  this  was  Vesuvius  answering  in  feebler,  but  still 
strong  and  far-heard  thunder.  Its  power  was  proved  by  its 
effect.  It  did  not,  indeed,  create  the  terror  of  Europe  against 
that  dreadful  Shape  of  Democracy  which  had  arisen  over  its 
path,  and  by  its  shadow  had  turned  all  the  waters  into  blood  ; 
but  it  condensed,  pointed,  and  propelled  the  common  fear  and 
horror  into  active  antagonism  with  its  opponent.  It  sharpen- 
ed the  sword  of  the  prevailing  desire  for  the  fight.  It  was 
the  first  wild,  wailing  trumpet  of  a  battle-field  of  twenty -four 
years'  duration.  One  is  reminded  of  the  contest  between  Fin- 
gal  and  the  Spirit  of  Loda.  There  seemed,  at  first,  a  great 
disparity  between  the  solitary  warrior  and  the  dreadful  Form 
riding  upon  the  midnight  tempest,  and  surrounded  with  his 
panoply  of  clouds.  But  the  warrior  was  ipse  agmen — his 
steel  was  sharp  and  true  ;  he  struck  at  the  Demon,  and  the 
Demon  shrieked,  rolled  himself  together,  and  retired  a  space, 
to  return,  however,  again,  with  his  painful  wound  healed,  and 
the  fury  of  his  blasts  aggravated,  when  there  was  no  Burke  to 


308  MISCELLANEOUS    SKETCHES. 


oppose  him.  The  merits  of  this  production  are,  we  think, 
greatly  enhanced  by  the  simplicity  of  the  vehicle  in  which  its 
thoughts  ride.  The  book  is  a  letter ;  but  such  a  letter !  In 
this  simplest  shape  of  literature,  we  find  philosophy  the  most 
subtle ;  invective  the  most  sublime  ;  speculation  the  most  far- 
stretching;  Titanic  ridicule,  like  the  cachinnation  of  a  Cy- 
clops ;  piercing  pathos ;  powerful  historic  painting ;  and  elo- 
quence the  most  dazzling  that  ever  combined  depth  with  splen- 
dor. That  it  is  the  ultimate  estimate  of  the  French  Revolu- 
tion, is  contended  for  by  no  one.  THAT  shall  only  be  seen 
after  the  history  of  earth  is  ended,  and  after  it  is  all  inscribed 
(to  allude  to  the  beautiful  Arabian  fable)  in  laconics  of  light 
over  "  Allah's  head;"  but,  meantime,  while  admitting  that 
Burke's  view  of  it  is  in  some  points  one-sided,  and  in  others 
colored  by  prejudice,  we  contend  that  he  has,  with  general 
fidelity,  painted  the  thing  as  it  then  was — the  bloody  bantling 
as  he  saw  it  in  the  cradle — although  he  did  not  foresee  that 
circumstances  and  events  were  greatly  to  modify  and  soften  its 
features  as  it  advanced.  Let  him  have  praise,  at  least,  for 
this,  that  he  discerned  and  exposed  the  true  character  of  mo- 
dern infidelity,  •which,  amid  all  the  disguises  it  has  since  as- 
sumed, is  still,  and  shall  remain  till  its  destruction,  the  very 
monster  of  vanity,  vice,  malignity,  and  sciolism,  which  he  has, 
by  a  few  touches  of  lightning,  shown  it  to  be.  How  thorough- 
ly he  comprehended  the  devil-inspired  monkey,  Voltaire  ;  and 
the  winged  frog,  Rousseau;  and  that  iroii  machine  of  artistic 
murder,  Carnot ;  and  La  Fayette,  the  republican  coxcomb ; 
and  that  rude  incarnation  of  the  genius  of  the  guillotine,  Ro- 
bespierre !  Through  those  strange  Satanic  shapes  he  moves 
in  the  majesty  of  his  virtue  and  his  manly  genius ;  like  a 
lofty  human  being  through  the  corner  of  a  museum  appropria- 
ted to  monsters — not  doing  violence  to  his  own  senses,  by  seek- 
ing to  include  them  in  the  catalogue  of  men,  nor  in  an  attitude 
of  affected  pity  and  transcendental  charity ; — but  feeling  and 
saying,  "  How  ugly  and  detestable  these  uiiscreations  are,  and, 
faugh  !  what  a  stench  they  emit." 

In  a  similar  spirit,  and  with  even  greater  power,  does  he 
seek  to  exorcise  the  evil  spirit  of  his  times,  in  his  "  Letters  on 
a  Regicide  Peace."  These  glorious  fragments  employed  his 
last  hours,  and  the  shadow  of  the  grave  lies  solemnly  upon 


EDMUND    BURKE.  309 


them.  When  he  wrote  them,  although  far  from  being  a  very 
old  man  (he  was  just  sixty-four),  yet  the  curtains  of  his  life's 
hope  had  suddenly  been  dropped  around  him.  It  was  not  that 
he  and  his  old  friends,  the  Whigs,  had  quarrelled ;  it  was  not 
that  he  had  stood  by  the  death-bed  of  Johnson,  and  had  un- 
dergone the  far  severer  pang  which  attended  his  divorce  from 
the  friendship  of  Fox  ;.  it  was  not  that  his  circumstances  were 
straitened  ;  it  was  not  that  his  motives  were  misrepresented ; 
it  was  not  that  "  misery  had  made  him  acquainted  with  strange 
bedfellows,"  and  driven  him  to  herd  with  beings  so  inferior 
and  radically  different  as  Pitt  and  Dundas ; — but  it  was  that 
death  had  snatched  away  him  in  whom  he  had  "  garnered  up 
his  heart" — his  son.  Be  it  that  that  son  was  not  all  his  father 
had  thought  him  to  be,  to  others — he  was  it  all  to  him.  If 
not  rich  himself,  was  it  nothing  that  his  father  had  lavished 
on  him  his  boundless  wealth  of  esteem  and  affection  ?  As  it 
is,  he  shines  before  us  in  the  light  of  his  father's  eloquence  for 
evermore.  Strange  and  enviable  this  power  of  genius !  It 
can  not  only  "  give  us  back  the  dead  even  in  the  loveliest 
looks  they  wore,"  but  it  can  give  them  a  loveliness  they  never 
possessed ;  it  can  dignify  the  obscure,  it  can  illuminate  the 
dark,  it  can  embalm  the  decayed;  and,  in  its  transforming 
splendor,  the  common  worm  becomes  a  glow-worm,  the  com- 
mon cloud  a  cloud  of  fire  and  glory,  every  arch  a  rainbow, 
every  spark  a  star,  and  every  star  a  sun.  It  can  preserve  ob- 
scure sorrows,  arid  the  obscurer  causes  of  these  sorrows,  and 
hang  a  splendor  in  the  tears  of  childhood,  and  eternise  the 
pathos  of  those  little  pangs  which  rend  little  hearts.  How 
Do  Quincey,  for  example,  has  beautified  the  sorrows,  and  pecu- 
liarities, and  small  adventures  of  his  boyhood — and  in  what 
a  transfiguring  beam  of  imagination  does  he  show  the  dead  face 
of  his  dear  sist?r,  Elizabeth  !  And  thus  young  Burke  sleeps, 
at  once  guarded  and  glorified,  beneath  the  bright  angel-wings 
of  his  father's  mighty  genius. 

It  is  most  affecting  to  come  upon  those  plaintive  expressions 
of  desolation  which  abound  in  Burke's  later  works,  as  where 
he  calls  himself  an  "  unhappy  man,"  and  wishes  to  be  permit- 
ted to  "  enjoy  in  his  retreat  the  melancholy  privileges  of  ob- 
scurity and  sorrow;"  and  where  he  compares  himself  to  an 
(<  old  oak  stripped  of  his  honors,  and  torn  up  by  the  roots." 


310  MISCELLANEOUS   SKETCHES. 


But  not  for  nothing  were  these  griefs  permitted  to  environ 
him.  Through  the  descending  cloud,  a  mighty  inspiration 
stooped  down  upon  his  soul.  Grief  roused,  and  bared,  and 
tossed  up  his  spirit  to  its  very  depths.  He  compares  himself 
to  Job,  lying  on  his  dunghill,  and  insulted  by  the  miserable 
comfort  of  his  friends.  And  as  Job's  silent  anguish  broke 
out  at  last  into  sublime  curses,  and  his  dunghill  heaved  up 
into  a  burning  prophetic  peak,  so  it  was  with  the  "  old  man 
eloquent"  before  us.  From  his  solitary  Beaconsfield,  with  its 
large  trees  moaning  around,  as  if  in  sympathy  with  his  incom- 
municable sorrow,  he  uttered  prophetic  warnings,  which  start- 
led Europe;  he  threw  forth  pearls  of  deepest  thought  and 
purest  eloquence ;  he  blew  war-blasts  of  no  uncertain  sound, 
to  which  armies  were  to  move,  and  navies  to  expand  their  vast 
white  wings ;  he  poured  out  plaints  of  sorrow,  which  melted 
the  hearts  of  millions ;  his  "  lightnings  also  he  shot  out," 
forked  bolts  of  blasting  invective,  against  the  enemies  or  pre- 
tended friends,  the  impostors  high  or  low,  who  dared  to  in- 
trude on  his  sacred  solitude  ;  and  it  fared  alike  with  a  Duke 
of  Bedford  and  a  Thomas  Paine,  as  with  the  rebel  angels  in 
Milton  :- 

"  On  each  wing 

Uriel  and  Raphael  his  vaunting  foe, 
Though  huge,  and  in  a  rock  of  diamond  arm'd, 
Yanquish'd  Adramelech  and  Asmadai, 
Two  potent  thrones,  that  to  he  less  than  gods 
Disdain'd,  hut  meaner  thoughts  learn'd  in  their  flight, 
Mangled  with  ghastly  wounds  through  plate  and  mail. 
Nor  stood  unmindful  Abdiel  to  annoy 
The  atheist  crew,  but,  with  redoubled  blow, 
Ariel  and  Arioch,  and  the  violence 
Of  Rainiel  scorch'd  and  blasted,  overthrew." 

But  he  had  not  only  the  inspiration  of  profound  misery, 
but  that,  also,  of  a  power  projected  forward  from  eternity. 
He  knew  that  he  was  soon  to  die,  and  the  motto  of  all  his  la- 
ter productions  might  have  been,  "  Moriturus  vos  saluto." 
This  gave  a  deeper  tone  to  his  tragic  warnings,  a  higher  digni- 
ty to  his  prophetic  attitude,  and  a  weightier  emphasis  to  his 
terrible  denunciations.  He  reminded  men  of  that  wild-eyed 
prophet,  who  ran  around  the  wall  of  doomed  Jerusalem  till 


EDMUND    BUUKE.  31  I 


he  sank  down  in  death,  and  cried  out,  "  Wo,  wo,  wo,  to  this 
city."  In  the  utterance  of  such  wild,  but  musical  and  mean- 
ing cries,  did  Burke  breathe  out  his  spirit. 

The  "  Regicide  Peace"  contains  no  passages  so  well  known 
as  some  in  the  "  Reflections,"  but  has,  on  the  whole,  a  pro- 
founder  vein  of  thinking,  a  bolder  imagery,  a  richer  and  more 
peculiar  language,  as  well  as  certain  long  and  high-wrought 
paragraphs,  which  have  seldom  been  surpassed.  Such  is  his 
picture  of  Carnot,  "  snorting  away  the  fumes  of  the  undiges- 
ted blood  of  his  sovereign;"  his  comparison  of  the  revolution- 
ary France  to  Algiers ;  his  description  of  a  supposed  entrance 
of  the  Regicide  ambassadors  into  London  ;  and  the  magnificent 
counsels  he  gives  Pitt  as  to  what  he  thought  should  have  been 
his  manner  of  conducting  the  war.  As  we  think  this  one  of 
the  noblest  swells  of  poetic  prose  in  the  language,  and  have 
never  seen  it  quoted,  or  even  alluded  to  by  former  critics,  we 
shall  give  it  entire  : — 

"  After  such  an  elaborate  display  had  been  made  of  the  in- 
justice and  insolence  of  an  enemy,  who  seems  to  have  been 
irritated  by  every  one  of  the  means  which  had  commonly  been 
used  with  effect  to  soothe  the  rage  of  intemperate  power,  the 
natural  result  would  be,  that  the  scabbard  in  which  we  in  vain 
attempted  to  plunge  our  sword,  should  have  been  thrown 
away  with  scorn,  it  would  have  been  natural,  that,  rising  in 
the  fulness  of  their  might,  insulted  majesty,  despised  dignity, 
violated  justice,  rejected  supplication,  patience  goaded  into  fu- 
ry, would  have  poured  out  all  the  length  of  the  reins  upon  all 
the  wrath  they  had  so  long  restrained.  It  might  have  been 
expected,  that,  emulous  of  the  glory  of  the  youthful  hero 
(Archduke  Charles  of  Austria)  in  alliance  with  him,  touched 
by  the  example  of  what  one  man,  well  formed  and  well  placed, 
may  do  in  the  most  desperate  state  of  affairs,  convinced  there 
is  a  courage  of  the  cabinet  full  as  powerful,  and  far  less  vul- 
gar, than  that  of  the  field,  our  minister  would  have  changed 
the  whole  line  of  that  useless  prosperous  prudence,  which  had 
hitherto  produced  all  the  effects  of  the  blindest  temerity.  If 
he  found  his  situation  full  of  danger,  (and  I  do  not  deny 
that  it  is  perilous  in  the  extreme),  he  must  feel  that  it  is  also 
full  of  glory,  and  that  he  is  placed  on  a  stage,  than  which  no 
muse  of  fire,  that  had  ascended  the  highest  heaven  of  inveu- 


312  MISCELLANEOUS    SKETCHES. 


tion,  could  imagine  anything  more  awful  and  august.  It  was 
hoped  that,  in  this  swelling  scene  in  which  he  moved,  with 
some  of  the  first  potentates  of  Europe  for  his  fellow-actors, 
and  with  so  many  of  the  rest  for  the  anxious  spectators  of  a 
part  which,  as  he  plays  it,  determines  for  ever  their  destiny 
and  his  own,  like  Ulysses  in  the  unravelling  point  of  the  epic 
story,  he  would  have  thrown  off  his  patience  and  his  rags  to- 
gether, and,  stripped  of  unworthy  disguises,  he  would  have 
stood  forth  in  the  form  and  in  the  attitude  of  a  hero.  On 
that  day  it  was  thought  he  would  have  assumed  the  port  of 
Mars  ;  that  he  would  have  bid  to  be  brought  forth  from  their 
hideous  kennel  (where  his  scrupulous  tenderness  had  too  long 
immured  them)  those  impatient  dogs  of  war,  whose  fierce  re- 
gards affright  even  the  minister  of  vengeance  that  feeds 
them;  that  he  would  let  them  loose,  in  famine,  fever,  plagues, 
and  death,  upon  a  guilty  race,  to  whose  frame,  and  to  all 
whose  habit,  order,  peace,  religion,  and  virtue  are  alien  and 
abhorrent.  It  was  expected  that  he  would  at  last  have 
thought  of  active  and  effectual  war ;  that  he  would  no  longer 
amuse  the  British  lion  in  the  chase  of  rats  and  mice ;  that  ho 
would  no  longer  employ  the  whole  naval  power  of  Great  Brit- 
ain, once  the  terror  of  the  world,  to  prey  upon  the  mis- 
erable remains  of  a  peddling  commerce,  which  the  enemy  did 
not  regard,  and  from  which  none  could  profit.  It  was  expect- 
ed that  he  would  have  re-asserted  the  justice  of  his  cause ; 
that  he  would  have  re-animated  whatever  remained  to  him  of 
his  allies,  and  endeavored  to  recover  those  whom  their  fears 
had  led  astray ;  that  he  would  have  rekindled  the  martial  ar- 
dor of  his  citizens ;  that  he  would  have  held  out  to  them  the 
example  of  their  ancestry,  the  asserter  of  Europe,  and  the 
scourge  of  French  ambition ;  that  he  would  have  reminded 
them  of  a  posterity,  which,  if  this  nefarious  robbery,  under 
the  fraudulent  name  and  false  color  of  a  government,  should 
in  full  power  be  seated  in  the  heart  of  Europe,  must  for  ever 
be  consigned  to  vice,  impiety,  barbarism,  and  the  most  igno- 
minious slavery  of  body  and  mind.  In  so  holy  a  cause,  it  was 
presumed  that  he  would  (as  in  the  beginning  of  the  war  he 
did)  have  opened  all  the  temples,  and  with  prayer,  with  fast- 
ing, and  with  supplication  (better  directed  than  to  the  grim 
Moloch  of  regicide  in  France),  have  called  upon  us  to  raise 


EDMUND    BURKE.  313 


that  united  cry  which  has  so  often  stormed  heaven,  and  with  a 
pious  violence,  forced  down  blessings  upon  a  repentant  people. 
It  was  hoped  that,  when  he  had  invoked  upon  his  endeavors 
the  favorable  regards  of  the  Protector  of  the  human  race,  it 
would  be  seen  that  his  menaces  to  the  enemy,  and  his  prayers 
to  the  Almighty,  were  not  followed,  but  accompanied,  with 
corresponding  action.  It  was  hoped  that  his  shrilling  trumpet 
should  be  heard,  not  to  announce  a  show,  but  to  sound  a 
charge." 

We  coine  now  to  him  as  an  orator.  And  here  we  must  cor- 
rect a  prevailing  misconception.  Many  seem  to  imagine  that  he 
had  no  power  of  oratorical  impression  ;  that  he  was  a  mere 
"  dinner-bell ;"  and  that  his  speeches,  however  splendid,  fell 
still-born  from  his  lips.  So  far  was  this  from  being  the  case, 
that  his  very  first  orations  in  Parliament — those,  namely,  on 
the  Stamp  Act — delivered  when  he  had  yet  a  reputation  to 
make,  according  to  Johnson,  "  filled  the  town  with  wonder;" 
an  effect  which,  we  fancy,  their  mere  merit,  if  unaccompanied 
by  some  energy  and  interest  of  delivery,  could  hardly  have 
produced.  So  long  as  he  was  in  office  under  Lord  llocking- 
ham,  and  under  the  Coalition  Ministry,  he  was  listened  to  with 
deference  and  admiration.  His  speech  against  Hastings  was 
waited  for  with  greater  eagerness,  and  heard  with  greater  ad- 
miration, than  any  of  that  brilliant  series,  except,  perhaps, 
Sheridan's  on  the  Begum  Charge ;  and  in  its  closing  passage, 
impeaching  Hastings  "  in  the  name  of  Human  Nature  itself," 
it  rose,  even  as  to  effect,  to  a  height  incomparably  above  any 
of  the  rest.  His  delivery,  indeed,  and  voice  were  not  first 
rate,  but  only  fribbles  or  fools  regard  such  things  much,  or  at 
least  long,  in  a  true  orator ;  and  when  Burke  became  fully 
roused,  his  minor  defects  were  always  either  surmounted  by 
himself,  or  forgotten  by  others.  The  real  secret  of  his  parlia- 
mentary unpopularity,  in  his  latter  years,  lay,  first,  in  the 
envy  with  which  his  matchless  powers  were  regarded ;  secondly, 
in  his  fierce  and  ungovernable  temper,  and  the  unguarded  vio- 
lence of  his  language ;  thirdly,  in  the  uncertainty  of  his  posi- 
tion and  circumstances ;  and,  lastly,  in  the  fact,  as  Johnson 
has  it,  that  "  while  no  one  could  deny  that  he  spoke  well,  yet 
all  granted  that  he  spoke  too  often  and  too  long.  His  soul, 

M 


314  MISCELLANEOUS    SKETCHES. 


besides,  generally  soared  above  his  audience,  and  sometimes 
forgot  to  return.  In  honest  Goldsmith's  version  of  it, 

"  Too  deep  for  his  hearers,  he  went  on  refining, 
And  thought  of  convincing,  while  they  thought  of  dining." 

But  he  could  never  be  put  down  to  the  last,  and  might,  had  he 
chosen,  have  contested  the  cheap  palm  of  instant  popularity 
even  with  the  most  voluble  of  his  rivals.  But  the  "  play  was 
not  worth  the  candle."  He  mingled,  indeed,  with  their  tempo- 
rary conflicts;  but  it  was  like  a  god  descending  from  Ida  to 
the  plains  of  Troy,  and  sharing  in  the  vulgar  shock  of  arms, 
with  a  high  celestial  purpose  in  view.  He  was,  in  fact,  over 
the  heads  of  the  besotted  parliaments  of  his  day,  addressing 
the  ears  of  all  future  time,  and  has  not  been  inaudible  in  that 
gallery. 

Goldsmith  is  right  in  saying  that  so  far  he  "narrowed  his 
mind."  But,  had  he  narrowed  it  a  little  farther,  he  could 
have  produced  so  much  the  more  of  immediate  impression,  and 
so  much  the  more  have  circumscribed  his  future  influence  and 
power.  He  was  by  nature  what  Clootz  pretended  to  be,  and 
what  all  genuine  speakers  should  aim  at  being,  "  an  orator  of 
the  human  race,"  and  he  never  altogether  lost  sight  of  this  his 
high  calling.  Hence,  while  a  small  class  adored  him,  and  a 
large  class  respected,  the  majority  found  his  speaking  apart 
from  their  purpose,  and  if  they  listened  to  it,  it  was  from  a 
certain  vague  impression  that  it  was  something  great  and  splen- 
did, only  not  very  intelligible,  and  not  at  all  practical.  In 
fact,  the  brilliance  of  his  imagination,  and  the  restless  play  of 
his  ingenuity,  served  often  to  conceal  the  solid  depth  and  prac- 
tical bearings  of  his  wisdom.  Men  seldom  give  a  famous  man 
credit  for  all  the  faculties  he  possesses.  If  they  dare  not  deny 
his  genius,  they  deny  his  sense ;  or,  if  they  are  obliged  to  ad- 
mit his  sense,  they  question  his  genius.  If  he  is  strong,  he 
cannot  be  beautiful,  and  if  beautiful,  he  must  be  weak.  That 
Burke  suffered  much  from  this  false  and  narrow  style  of  criti- 
cism, is  unquestionable ;  but  that  he  was  ever  the  gigantic  bore 
on  the  floor  of  the  House  of  Commons  which  some  pretend, 
we  venture  to  doubt.  The  fact  was  probably  this — on  small 
matters  he  was  thought  prosy,  and  coughed  down,  but,  when- 
ever there  was  a  large  load  to  be  lifted,  a  great  question  to  be 


EDMUND  BUKKE  315 


discussed — a  Hastings  to  be  crushed,  or  a  French  revolution  to 
be  analysed — the  eyes  of  the  house  instinctively  turned  to  the 
seat  where  the  profound  and  brilliant  man  was  seated,  and 
their  hearts  irresistibly  acknowledged,  at  times,  what  their 
tongues  and  prejudices  often  denied. 

And  yet  it  is  amusing  to  find,  from  a  statement  of  Burke's 
own,  that  the  Whigs  whom  he  had  deserted  solaced  themselves 
for  the  unparalleled  success  of  the  "Reflections  on  the  French 
Revolution,"  by  underrating  it  in  a  literary  point  of  view.  Is 
this  the  spirit  of  real  or  of  mock  humility  in  which  he  speaks, 
in  his  "  Appeal  from  the  New  to  the  Old  Whigs  ?"  "  The 
gentlemen  who  in  the  name  of  the  party  have  passed  sentence 
on  Mr.  Burke's  book  in  the  light  of  literary  criticism,  are 
judges  above  all  challenge.  He  did  not  indeed  flatter  himself 
that  as  a  writer,  he  could  claim  the  approbation  of  men  whoso 
talents,  in  his  judgment  and  in  the  public  judgment,  approach 
to  prodigies,  if  ever  such  persons  should  be  disposed  to  esti- 
mate the  merit  of  a  composition  upon  the  standard  of  their 
own  ability."  Surely  this  must  be  ironical,  else  it  would  seem 
an  act  of  voluntary  humility  as  absurd  as  though  De  Quincey 
were  deferring  in  matters  of  philosophy  or  style  to  the  "  supe- 
rior judgment"  of  some  of  our  American  or  St.  Andrews  made 
doctors ;  or  as  though  Mrs.  Stowe  were  to  dedicate  her  next 
novel  to  the  author  of  the  "  Coming  Struggle."  Pretty  critics 
they  were  !  Think  of  the  glorious  eloquence,  wisdom,  passion, 
and  poetry,  the  "burning  coals  of  juniper,  sharp  arrows  of  the 
strong,"  to  be  found  in  every  page  of  the  "  Reflections," 
sneered  at  by  two  men,  at  least,  not  one  of  whose  works  is  now 
read — by  the  writer  of  a  farrago  like  the  "  Spital  Sermon,"  or 
by  the  author  of  such  illegible  dulness  as  the  "  History  of 
James  II.,"  or  even  by  Sheridan,  with  his  clever  heartless 
plays,  and  the  brilliant  falsetto  of  his  speeches ;  or  even  by 
Macintosh,  with  the  rhetorical  logic  and  forced  flowers  of  his 
"  Vindicise  G-allicje."  Surely  Burke  did,  in  his  heart,  appeal 
from  their  tribunal  to  that  of  a  future  age.  To  do  Macintosh 
justice,  he  learned  afterwards  to  form  a  far  loftier  estimate  of 
the  author  of  the  "  Reflections."  He  was,  soon  after  the  pub- 
lication of  his  "  Vindiciae  Gallicae,"  invited  to  spend  some 
days  at  Beaconsfield.  There  he  found  the  old  giant,  now  toy- 
ing on  the  carpet  with  little  children,  now  cracking  bad  jokes 


316  MISCELLANEOUS    SKETCHES 


and  the  vilest  of  puns,  and  now  pouring  out  magnificent 
thoughts  and  images.  In  the  course  of  a  week's  animated  dis- 
cussion on  the  French  Revolution,  and  many  cognate  subjects, 
Macintosh  was  completely  converted  to  Burke's  views,  and 
came  back  impressed  with  an  opinion  of  his  genius  and  charac- 
ter, far  higher  than  his  writings  had  given  him.  Indeed,  his 
speech  in  defence  of  Peltier — by  much  the  most  eloquent  of 
his  published  speeches — bears  on  it  the  fiery  traces  of  the  influ- 
ence which  Burke  had  latterly  exerted  on  his  mind.  The  early 
sermons,  too,  and  the  "  Apology  for  the  Liberty  of  the  Press," 
by  Hall,  are  less  colored,  than  created  by  the  power  which 
Burke's  writings  had  exerted  on  his  dawning  genius.  But 
more  of  this  afterwards. 

What  a  pity  that  Boswell  had  not  been  born  a  twin,  and 
that  the  brother  had  not  attached  himself  as  fondly  and  faith- 
fully to  Burke,  as  Jemmy  to  Johnson !  Boswell's  Life  of 
Burke  would  noiv  have  been  even  more  popular  than  Boswell's 
Life  of  Johnson.  For,  if  Johnson's  sayings  were  more  pointed 
and  witty,  Burke's  were  profouuder  and  sublimer  far.  John- 
son had  lived  as  much  with  books  and  with  certain  classes  of 
men,  but  Burke  had  conversed  more  with  the  silent  company 
of  thoughts ;  and  all  grand  generalisations  were  to  him  palpa- 
ble, familiar,  and  life-like  as  a  gallery  of  pictures.  Johnson 
was  a  lazy,  slumbering  giant,  seldom  moving  himself  except  to 
strangle  the  flies  which  buzzed  about  his  nostrils ;  Burke 
wrought  like  a  Cyclops  in  his  cave.  Johnson,  not  Burke,  was 
the  master  of  amplification,  from  no  poverty,  but  from  indo- 
lence :  he  often  rolled  out  sounding  surges  of  commonplace, 
with  no  bark  and  little  beauty,  upon  the  swell  of  the  wave ; 
Burke's  mind,  as  we  have  seen  before,  was  morbidly  active ;  it 
was  impatient  of  circular  movement  round  an  idea,  or  of  noise 
and  agitation  without  progress :  his  motto  ever  was  "  On- 
wards," and  his  eloquence  always  bore  the  stamp  of  thought. 
Johnson  looked  at  all  things  through  an  atmosphere  of  gloom ; 
Burke  was  of  a  more  sanguine  temperament ;  and  if  cobwebs 
did  at  any  time  gather,  the  breath  of  his  anger  or  of  his  indus- 
try speedily  blew  them  away.  Johnson  had  mingled  princi- 
pally with  scholars,  or  the  middle  class  of  community ;  Burke 
was  brought  early  into  contact  with  statesmen,  the  nobility  and 
gentry,  and  this  told  both  upon  his  private  manners  and  upon 


EDMUND    BURKE.  317 


his  knowledge  of  human  nature.  Johnson's  mind  was  of  the 
sharp,  strong,  sturdy  order ;  Burke's  of  the  subtle,  deep,  re- 
volving sort ;  as  Goldsmith  said,  he  "  wound  into  every  sub- 
ject like  a  serpent."  Both  were  honest,  fearless,  and  pious 
men ;  but,  while  Burke's  honesty  sometimes  put  on  a  court 
dress,  and  his  fearlessness  sometimes  "  licked  the  dust,"  and 
his  piety  could  stand  at  ease,  Johnson  in  all  these  points  was 
ever  roughly  and  nakedly  the  same.  Johnson,  in  wit,  the 
point  of  individual  sentences,  and  in  solemn  pictures  of  human 
life,  its  sorrows  and  frailties,  was  above  Burke ;  but  was  as  far 
excelled  by  him  in  power  of  generalisation,  vastness  of 
range  and  reading,  exuberance  of  fancy,  daring  rhetoric,  and  in 
skilful  management  and  varied  cadence  of  style.  Johnson  had 
a  philosophical  vein,  but  it  had  never  received  much  culture ; 
Burke's  had  been  carefully  fed,  and  failed  only  at  times 
through  the  subjects  to  which  it  was  directed.  Johnson's  talk, 
although  more  brilliant,  memorable,  and  imposing  was  also  more 
set,  starched,  and  produced  with  more  effort  than  Burke's, 
who  seemed  to  talk  admirably  because  he  could  not  help  it,  or, 
as  his  great  rival  said,  "  because  his  mind  was  full."  John- 
sou  was,  notwithstanding  his  large  proportions,  of  the  earth 
earthy,  after  all ;  his  wings,  like  those  of  the  ostrich,  were  not 
commensurate  with  his  size ;  Burke,  to  vast  bulk  and  stature, 
added  pinions  which  bore  him  from  peak  to  peak,  and  from  one 
gorgeous  tract  of  "  cloudland"  to  another. 

Boswell  and  Prior  have  preserved  only  a  few  specimens  of 
Burke's  conversation,  which  are,  however,  so  rich  as  to  excite 
deep  regret  that  more  has  not  been  retained ;  and  a  conviction 
that  his  traditional  reputation  has  not  been  exaggerated,  and 
that  his  talk  was  the  truest  revelation  of  his  powers.  Every 
one  knows  the  saying  of  Dr.  Johnson,  that  you  could  not  go 
with  Burke  under  a  shed  to  shun  a  shower,  without  saying, 
"  this  is  an  extraordinary  man."  Nor  was  this  merely  because 
he  could  talk  cleverly  and  at  random  on  all  subjects,  and  hit 
on  brilliant  things ;  but  that  he  seemed  to  have  weighed  and 
digested  his  thoughts,  and  prepared  and  adjusted  his  language 
on  all  subjects,  at  the  same  time  that  impulse  and  excitement 
were  ever  ready  to  sprinkle  splendid  impromptus  upon  the 
stream  of  his  speech.  He  combined  the  precision  and  perfect 
preparation  of  the  lecturer  with  the  ease  and  fluency  of  the 


318  MISCELLANEOUS    SKETCHES. 


conversationist.  He  did  not,  like  some,  go  on  throwing  out 
shining  paradoxes ;  or,  with  others,  hot  gorgeous  metaphors, 
hatched  between  excitement  and  vanity  ;  or,  with  others,  give 
prepared  and  polished  orations,  disguised  in  the  likeness  of 
extempore  harangues ;  or,  with  others,  perpetually  strive  to 
startle,  to  perplex,  to  mystify,  and  to  shine.  Burke's  talk 
was  that  of  a  thoroughly  furnished,  gifted,  and  profoundly 
informed  man  thinking  aloud.  His  conversation  was  just 
the  course  of  a  great,  rich  river,  winding  at  its  sweet  or  its 
wild  will — always  full,  often  overflowing;  sometimes  calm, 
and  sometimes  fretted  and  fierce ;  sometimes  level  and  deep, 
and  sometimes  starred  with  spray,  or  leaping  into  cataracts ; 
sometimes  rolling  through  rich  alluvial  plains,  and  sometimes 
through  defiles  of  romantic  interest.  Who  shall  venture  to 
give  us  an  "  Imaginary  Conversation"  between  him  and  John- 
son, on  the  subject  referred  to  by  Boswell,  about  the  compara- 
tive merits  of  Homer  and  Virgil,  or  on  some  similar  topic,  in 
a  style  that  shall  adequately  represent  the  point,  roughness, 
readiness,  and  sense  of  the  one,  and  the  subtlety,  varied  know- 
ledge, glares  of  sudden  metaphoric  illumination  crossing  the 
veins  of  profound  reflection,  which  distinguished  the  other — 
the  "  no,  sirs,"  and  the  "  therefores"  of  the  one,  with  the 
"  buts,"  the  "  unlesses,"  and  the  terrible  "  excuse  me,  sirs," 
of  the  other  ?  We  wonder  that  Savage  Landor  has  never 
attempted  it,  and  brought  in  poor  Burns — the  only  man  then 
living  in  Britain  quite  worthy  to  be  a  third  party  in  the  dia- 
logue— now  to  shed  his  meteor  light  upon  the  matter  of  the 
argument ;  and  now,  by  his  wit  or  song,  to  soothe  and  harmo- 
nise the  minds  of  the  combatants. 

Burke's  talk  is  now,  however,  as  a  whole,  irrecoverably  lost. 
What  an  irrepressible  sigh  escapes  us,  as  we  reflect  that  this 
is  true  of  so  many  noble  spirits  !  Their  works  may  remain 
with  us,  but  that  fine  aroma  which  breathed  in  their  conversa- 
tion, that  inspired  beam  which  shone  in  their  very  eyes,  are 
for  ever  gone.  Some  of  the  first  of  men,  indeed,  have  had 
nothing  to  lose  in  this  respect.  Their  conversation  was  infe- 
rior to  their  general  powers.  Their  works  were  evening  sha- 
dows more  gigantic  than  themselves.  We  have,  at  least,  their 
essence  preserved  in  their  writings.  This  probably  is  true 
even  of  Shakspeare  and  Milton.  But  Johnson,  Burke,  Burns, 


EDMUND    BURKE.  319 


and  Coleridge,  were  so  constituted,  that  conversation  was  the 
only  magnet  that  could  draw  out  the  full  riches  of  their 
genius ;  and  all  of  them  would  have  required  each  his  own 
Siamese  twin  to  have  accompanied  him  through  life,  and,  with 
the  pen  and  the  patience  of  Bozzy,  to  have  preserved  the  con- 
tinual outpourings  of  their  fertile  brains  and  fluent  tongues. 
We  are  not,  however,  arguing  their  superiority  to  the  two 
just  mentioned,  or  to  others  of  a  similar  stamp,  whose  writ- 
ings were  above  their  talk — far  the  reverse — but  are  simply 
asserting  that  we  may  regret  more  the  comparative  meagreness 
of  biography  in  the  case  of  the  one  class  than  of  the  other. 

Burke,  in  private,  was  unquestionably  one  of  the  most 
blameless  of  the  eminent  men  of  his  day.  He  was,  in  all  his 
married  life  at  least,  entirely  free  from  the  licentiousness  of 
Fox,  the  dissipation  of  Sheridan,  and  the  hard-drinking  habits 
of  Pitt.  But  he  was  also  the  most  amiable  and  actively 
benevolent  of  them.  Wise  as  a  serpent,  he  was  harmless  as  a 
dove ;  and,  when  the  deep  sources  of  his  indignation  were  not 
touched,  gentle  as  a  lamb.  Who  has  forgot  his  fatherly  inte- 
rest in  poor  Crabbe — that  flower  blushing  and  drooping  un- 
seen, till  Burke  lifted  it  up  in  his  hand,  and  gave  his  protege 
bread  and  immortality  ?  or  his  kindness  to  rough,  thank- 
less Barry,  whom  he  taught  and  counselled  as  wisely  as  if 
he  had  been  a  prophet  of  art,  not  politics,  and  as  if  he  had 
studied  nothing  else  but  painting  (proving  thus,  besides  his 
tender  heart,  that  a  habit  and  power  of  deep  and  genuine 
thinking  can  easily  be  transferred  from  one  branch,  to  all — a 
truth  substantiated,  besides,  by  the  well-known  aid  he  gave 
Sir  Joshua  Reynolds  in  his  lectures) ;  or  last,  not  least,  his 
Good  Samaritan  treatment  of  the  wretched  street-stroller  he 
met,  took  home,  introduced,  after  hearing  her  story,  to  Mrs. 
Burke,  who  watched  over,  reformed,  and  employed  her  in  her 
service  ?  "  These  are  deeds  which  must  not  pass  away." 
Like  green  laurels  on  the  bald  head  of  a  Caesar,  they  add  a 
beauty  and  softness  to  the  grandeur  of  Burke's  mind,  and 
leave  you  at  a  loss  (fine  balance !  rare  alternative !  compli- 
ment, like  a  biforked  sunbeam,  cutting  two  ways !)  whether 
more  to  love  or  to  admire  him.  Fit  it  was  that  HE  should 
have  passed  that  noble  panegyric  on  Howard,  the  "  Circum- 
navigator of  Charity,1'  which  now  stands,  and  shall  long  stand 


520  MISCELLANEOUS     SKETCHES, 


like  a  mountain  before  its  black  and  envious  shadow,  over 
against  Carlyle's  late  unhappy  attack  on  the  unrivalled  phi- 
lanthropist. 

We  promised  a  word  on  Burke's  critics.  They  have  been 
numerous  and  various.  From  Johnson,  Fox,  Laurence,  Mac- 
intosh, Wordsworth,  Brougham,  Hazlitt,  Macaulay,  De  Quin- 
cey,  Croly,  H.  Rogers,  &c.,  down  to  Prior,  &c.  Johnson 
gave  again  and  again  his  sturdy  verdict  in  his  favor,  which 
was  more  valuable  then  than  it  is  now.  "  If  I  were,"  he  said, 
when  once  ill  and  unable  to  talk,  "  to  meet  that  fellow  Burke 
to-night,  it  would  kill  me."  Fox  admitted  that  he  had  learned 
more  from  Burke's  conversation  than  from  all  his  reading  and 
experience  put  together.  Laurence,  one  of  his  executors,  has 
left  recorded  his  glowing  sense  of  his  friend's  genius  and  vir- 
tues. Of  Macintosh's  admiration  we  have  spoken  above ; 
although,  in  an  article  which  appeared  in  the  "Edinburgh 
Review,"  somewhere  in  1830,  he  seems  to  modify  his  appro- 
bation ;  induced  to  this,  partly,  perhaps,  by  the  influences  of 
Holland  House,  and  partly  by  those  chills  of  age  which,  fall- 
ing on  the  higher  genius  and  nature  of  Burke,  served  only  to 
revive  and  stimulate  him,  but  which  damped  whatever  glow 
Macintosh  once  had.  Wordsworth's  lofty  estimate  is  given 
in  Lord  John  Russell's  recent  Biography  of  Moore,  and 
serves  not  only  to  prove  what  his  opinion  was,  but  to  estab- 
lish a  strong  distinction  between  the  mere  dilettante  littera- 
teur like  Canning,  and  the  mere  statesman  like  Pitt,  and  a 
man  who,  like  Burke,  combined  the  deepest  knowledge  of 
politics  and  the  most  unaffected  love  for  literature  and  lite- 
rary men.  Brougham's  estimate,  in  his  "  Statesmen,"  &c.,  is 
not  exactly  unfair,  but  fails,  first,  through  his  lordship's  pro- 
found uulikeness,  in  heart,  habits,  kind  of  culture,  taste,  and 
genius,  to  the  subject  of  his  critique — (Burke,  to  name  two 
or  three  distinctions,  was  always  a  careful,  while  Brougham  is 
often  an  extempore,  thinker.  Burke  is  a  Cicero,  and  some- 
thing far  more ;  Brougham  aspires  to  be  a  Demosthenes,  and 
is  something  far  less.  Burke  reasons  philosophically — a  mode 
of  ratiocination  which,  as  we  have  seen,  can  be  employed  with 
advantage  on  almost  all  subjects ;  Brougham  reasons  geomet- 
rically, and  is  one  of  those  who,  according  to  Aristotle,  are 
sure  to  err  when  they  turn  their  mathematical  method  to 


EDMUND    BURKE.  321 


moral  or  mental  themes.  Burke's  process  of  thought  resem- 
bles the  swift  synthetic  algebra  ;  Brougham's,  the  slow,  plod- 
ding, geometric  analysis.  Burke  had  prophetic  insight,  ear- 
nestness, and  poetic  fire ;  Brougham  has  marvellous  acuteness, 
the  earnestness  of  passion,  and  the  fire  of  temperament.  Burke 
had  genuine  imagination  ;  Brougham  has  little  or  none ;  and, 
second,  through  his  prodigious  exaggerations  of  Burke's  rivals, 
who,  because  they  were  near  and  around,  appear  to  him  cog- 
nate and  equal,  if  not  superior ;  even  as  St.  Peter's  is  said  to 
be  lessened  in  effect  by  some  tall  but  tasteless  buildings  in 
the  neighborhood ;  and  as  the  giant  Ben  Macdhui  was  long 
concealed  by  the  lofty  but  subordinate  hills  which  crush  in 
around  him.  Hazlitt,  Macaulay,  and  De  Quincey  have  all 
seen  Burke  in  a  truer  light,  and  praised  him  in  the  spirit  of  a 
more  generous  and  richer  recognition.  Hazlitt  has  made,  he 
tells  us,  some  dozen  attempts  to  describe  Burke's  style,  with- 
out pleasing  himself — so  subtle  and  evasive  he  found  its  ele- 
ments, and  so  strange  the  compound  in  it  of  matter-of-fact, 
speculation,  and  poetic  eloquence.  His  views  of  him,  too, 
veered  about  several  times — at  least  they  seem  very  different 
in  his  papers  in  the  "  Edinburgh  Keview,"  and  in  his  acknow- 
ledged essays ;  although  we  believe  that  at  heart  he  always 
admired  him  to  enthusiasm,  and  is  often  his  unconscious  imi- 
tator. Macaulay  has  also  a  thorough  appreciation  of  Burke, 
the  more  that  he  is  said  to  fancy — it  is  nothing  more  than  a 
fancy — that  there  is  a  striking  resemblance  between  his  hero 
and  himself!  De  Quincey,  following  in  this  Coleridge,  has 
felt,  and  eloquently  expressed,  his  immeasurable  contempt  for 
those  who  praise  Burke's  fancy  at  the  expense  of  his  intellect. 
Dr.  Croly  has  published  a  "  Political  Life  of  Burke,"  full  of 
eloquence  and  fervid  panegyric,  as  well  as  of  strong  discrimi- 
nation ;  Burke  is  manifestly  his  master,  nor  has  he  found  an 
unworthy  disciple.  Henry  Rogers  has  edited  and  prefaced  an 
edition  of  Burke's  works,  but  the  prefixed  essay,  although 
able,  is  hardly  worthy  of  the  author  of  "  Reason  and  Faith," 
and  its  eloquence  is  of  a  laborious,  mechanical  sort.  And 
Hall  has,  in  his  "Apology  for  the  Liberty  of  the  Press," 
which  was  in  part  a  reply  to  the  "  Reflections,"  painted  him 
by  a  few  beautiful  touches,  less  true,  however,  than  they  are 
beautiful ;  and  his  pamphlet,  although  carefully  modelled  on 


322  MISCELLANEOUS    SKETCHES. 


the  writings  of  his  opponent,  is  not  to  be  named  beside  thevn 
in  depth,  compass  of  thought,  richness  of  imagery,  or  variety 
and  natural  vigor  of  style;  his  splendor,  compared  to  Burke's, 
is  stiff;  his  thinking  and  his  imagery  imitative — no  more  than 
in  the  case  of  Macaulay  do  you  ever  feel  yourself  in  contact 
with  a  "  great  virgin  mind,"  melting  down  through  the  heat 
and  weight  of  its  own  exhaustless  wealth,  although,  in  absence 
of  fault,  stateliness  of  manner  and  occasional  polished  felicities 
of  expression,  Hall  is  superior  even  to  Burke. 

That  Burke  was  Junius,  we  do  not  believe :  but  that  Burke 
HAD  TO  DO  with  the  composition  of  some  of  these  celebrated 
letters,  we  are  as  certain  as  if  we  had  seen  his  careful  front, 
and  dim,  but  searching  eyes  looking  through  his  spectacles 
over  the  MS.  He  was  notoriously  (see  Prior's  Life)  in  the 
secret  of  their  authorship.  Johnson  thought  him  the  only 
man  then  alive  capable  of  writing  them.  Hall's  objection, 
that  "  Burke's  great  power  was  amplification,  while  that  of 
Junius  was  condensation,"  sprung,  we  think,  from  a  totally 
mistaken  idea  of  the  very  nature  of  Burke's  mind.  There  is 
far  more  condensed  thinking  and  writing  in  many  parts  of 
Burke  than  in  Junius — the  proof  of  which  is,  that  no  prose 
writer  in  the  language,  except,  perhaps,  Dean  Swift,  has  had 
so  many  single  sentences  so  often  quoted.  That  the  motion 
of  the  mind  of  Junius  differs  materially  from  Burke's,  is 
granted ;  but  we  could  account  for  this  (even  although  we 
contended,  which  we  do  not,  that  he  was  the  sole  author), 
from  the  awkwardness  of  the  position  in  which  the  Anony- 
mous would  necessarily  place  him.  He  would  become  like  a 
man  writing  with  his  left  hand.  The  mask  would  confine  as 
well  as  disguise  him.  He  durst  not  venture  on  that  free  and 
soaring  movement  which  was  natural  to  him.  Who  ever 
heard  of  a  man  in  a  mask  swaying  a  broadsword  ?  He  always 
uses  a  stiletto,  or  a  dagger.  Many  of  the  best  things  in 
"  Junius"  are  in  one  of  Burke's  manners ;  for,  as  we  have 
seen,  many  manners  and  styles  were  his.  He  said  to  Boswell, 
in  reference  to  Croft's  "  Life  of  Young,"  "  It  is  not  a  good 
imitation  of  Johnson  :  he  has  the  nodosities  of  the  oak,  with- 
out its  strength — the  contortions  of  the  sibyl,  without  her  in- 
spiration." Junius  says  of  Sir  W.  Draper,  "  He  has  all  the 
melancholy  madness  of  poetry,  without  the  inspiration."  How 


EDMUND    BURKE.  323 


like  to  many  sentences  in  Burke  are  such  expressions  as  these 
(speaking  of  Wilkes) : — "  The  gentle  breath  of  peace  would 
leave  him  on  the  surface,  unruffled  and  unremoved ;  it  is  only 
the  tempest  which  lifts  him  from  his  place."  We  could  quote 
fifty  pithy  sentences  from  Junius  and  from  Burke,  which, 
placed  in  parallel  columns,  would  convince  an  unprejudiced 
critic  that  they  came  from  the  same  mind.*  It  is  the  union 
in  both  of  point,  polish,  and  concentration — a  union  reminding 
you  of  the  deep  yet  shining  sentences  of  Tacitus — that  estab- 
lishes the  identity.  Junius  has  two  salts  in  his  style — the 
sal  acridum,  and  the  sal  Atticum.  Sir  Philip  Francis  was 
equal  to  the  supply  of  the  first ;  Burke  alone  to  that  of  the 
secqnd.  It  adds  to  the  evidence  for  this  theory,  that  Burke 
was  fond  of  anonymous  writing,  and  that  in  it  he  occasionally 
"  changed  his  voice,"  and  personated  other  minds  :  think  of 
his  "  Vindication  of  Natural  Society  in  the  Manner  of  Lord 
Bolingbroke."  He  often,  too,  assisted  other  writers  sub  rosa, 
such  as  Barry  and  Reynolds,  in  their  prelections  on  painting. 
We  believe,  in  short,  this  to  be  the  truth  on  the  subject :  he 
was  in  the  confidence  of  the  Junius  Club — for  a  club  it  cer- 
tainly was ;  he  overlooked  many  of  the  letters  (Prior  asserts 
that  he  once  or  twice  spoke  of  what  was  to  be  the  substance  of 
a  letter  the  day  before  it  appeared) ;  and  he  supplied  many  of 
his  inimitable  touches,  just  as  Lord  Jeffrey  was  wont  to  add 
spice  even  to  some  of  Hazlitt's  articles  in  the  "  Edinburgh 
Review."  So  that  he  could  thus  very  safely  and  honestly 
deny,  as  he  repeatedly  did,  that  he  was  the  author  of  Junius, 
and  yet  be  connected  with  the  authorship  of  the  letters. 

*  Amid  the  innumerable  full-grown  beauties,  or  even  hints  of  beau- 
ties, borrowed  by  after- writers  from  Burke,  we  have  just  noticed  one, 
which  Macintosh,  in  his  famous  letter  to  Hall,  has  appropriated  with- 
out acknowledgment.  It  is  where  he  speaks  of  Hall  turning  from 
literature,  &c.,  to  the  far  nobler  task  of  "remembering  the  forgotten," 
&c.  This  grand  simplicity,  of  which  Macintosh  was  altogether  in- 
capable, may  be  found  in  Burke's  panegyric  on  Howard.  Indeed,  we 
wish  we  had  time  to  go  over  Burke's  works,  and  to  prove  that  a  vast 
number  of  the  profound  or  brilliant  things  that  have  since  been  uttered 
(disguised  or  partially  altered),  in  most  of  our  favorite  writers  on 
grave  subjects,  present  and  past,  are  stolen  from  the  great  fountain 
mind  of  the  eighteenth  century.  We  may  do  so  on  some  future  oc- 
casion ;  and  let  the  plagiarists  tremble !  Enough  at  present. 


824  MISCELLAXEOUS    SKETCHES. 


We  come,  lastly,  to  speak  of  the  influence  wliioli  Burke  has 
exerted  upon  his  and  our  times.  This  has  been  greater  than 
most  even  of  his  admirers  believe.  He  was  one  of  the  few 
parent  minds  which  the  world  has  produced.  Well  does  Burns 
call  him  "  Daddie  Burke."  And  both  politics  and  literature 
owe  filial  obligations  to  his  unbounded  genius.  In  politics  he 
haa  been  the  father  of  moderate  Conservatism,  which  is,  at 
least,  a  tempering  of  Toryism,  if  not  its  sublimation.  That 
conservatism  in  politics  and  in  church  matters  exists  now  in 
Britain,  is,  we  believe,  mainly  owing  to  the  genius  of  two  men 
— Burke  and  Coleridge.  In  literature,  too,  he  set  an  exam- 
ple that  has  been  widely  followed.  He  unintentionally,  and 
by  the  mere  motion  of  his  powerful  mind,  broke  the  chains  in 
which  Johnson  was  binding  our  style  and  criticism,  without, 
however,  going  back  himself,  or  leading  back  others,  to  the 
laxity  of  the  Addisonian  manner.  All  good  and  vigorous 
English  style  since — that  of  Godwin,  that  of  Foster,  that  of 
Hall,  that  of  Horsley,  that  of  Coleridge,  that  of  Jeffrey,  that 
of  Hazlitt,  that  of  De  Quincey,  that  of  the  "  Times'"  newspaper 
— are  much  indebted  to  the  power  with  which  Burke  stirred 
the  stagnant  waters  of  our  literature,  and  by  which,  while  pro- 
pressedly  an  enemy  of  revolutions,  he  himself  established  one 
of  the  greatest,  most  beneficial,  and  most  lasting — that,  name- 
ly, of  a  new,  more  impassioned,  and  less  conventional  mode  of 
addressing  the  intellects  and  hearts  of  men. 

Latterly,  another  change  has  threatened  to  come  over  us. 
Some  men  of  genius  have  imported  from  abroad  a  mangled 
and  mystic  Germanism,  which  has  been  for  awhile  the  rage. 
This  has  not,  however,  mingled  kindly  with  the  current  of  our 
literature.  The  philosophic  language  of  jargon — and  it  is 
partly  both — of  the  Teutons  has  not  been  well  assimilated,  or 
thoroughly  digested  among  us.  From  its  frequent  and  affect- 
ed use,  it  is  fast  becoming  a  nuisance.  While  thinkers  have 
gladly  availed  themselves  of  all  that  is  really  valuable  in  its 
terminology,  pretenders  have  still  more  eagerly  sought  shelter 
for  their  conceit  or  morbid  weakness  under  -its  shield.  The 
stuff,  the  verbiage,  the  mystic  bewilderment,  the  affectation, 
the'disguised  commonplace,  which  every  periodical  almost  now 
teems  with,  under  the  form  of  this  foreign  phraseology,  are 
enormous,  and  would  require  a  Swift,  in  a  new  "  Tale  of  a 


EDGAR    A.    POE.  325 


Tub,"  or  "  Battle  of  the  Books,"  to  expose  them.  "We  fancy, 
however,  we  see  a  re-action  coming.  Great  is  the  Anglo- 
Saxon,  the  language  of  Shakspeare  and  Byron,  and  it  shall  yet 
prevail  over  the  feeble  refinements  of  the  small  mimics  of  the 
Teutonic  giants.  Germany  was  long  Britain's  humble  echo 
and  translator.  Britain,  please  God !  shall  never  become  its 
shadow.  Our  thought,  too,  and  faith,  which  have  suffered 
from  the  same  cause,  are  in  due  time  to  recover ;  nay,  the 
process  of  restoration  is  begun.  And  among  other  remedies 
for  the  evil,  while  yet  it  in  a  great  measure  continues,  we 
strongly  recommend  a  recurrence  to  the  works  of  our  great 
classics  in  the  past ;  and,  among  their  bright  list,  let  not  him 
be  forgotten,  who,  apart  from  his  genius,  his  worth,  and  his 
political  achievements,  has  in  his  works  presented  so  many 
titles  to  be  considered  not  only  as  the  facile  princeps  among 
the  writers  of  his  own  time  (although  this  itself  were  high  dis- 
tinction), but  as  one  of  the  first  authors  who,  in  any  age  or 
country,  ever  speculated  or  wrote. 


NO.    V.-EDGAR   A.    POE, 

WE  have  sometimes  amused  ourselves  by  conjecturing — • 
Had  the  history  of  human  genius  run  differently — had  all  men 
of  that  class  been  as  wise,  and  prudent,  and  good,  as  too  many 
of  them  have  been  improvident,  foolish,  and  depraved — had  we 
had  a  virtuous  Burns,  a  pure  Byron,  a  Goldsmith  with  com- 
mon sense,  a  Coleridge  with  self-control,  and  a  Poe  with  so- 
briety— what  a  different  world  it  had  been  ;  what  each  of  these 
surpassing  spirits  might  have  done  to  advance,  refine,  and 
purify  society ;  what  a  host  of  "  minor  prophets"  had  been 
found  among  the  array  of  the  poets  of  our  own  country  ! — 
For  more  than  the  influence  of  kings,  or  rulers,  or  statesmen, 
or  clergymen — though  it  were  multiplied  tenfold — is  that  of 
the  "  Makers"  whose  winged  words  pass  through  all  lands, 


326  MISCELLANEOUS    SKETCHES. 


tingle  in  all  ears,  touch  all  hearts,  and  in  all  circumstances  are 
remembered  and  come  humming  around  us — in  the  hours  of 
labor,  in  the  intervals  of  business,  in  trouble,  and  sorrow,  and 
sickness,  and  on  the  bed  of  death  itself;  who  enjoy,  in  fact,  a 
kind  of  omnipresence — whose  thoughts  have  over  us  the  three- 
fold grasp  of  beauty,  language,  and  music — and  to  whom  at 
times  "  all  power  is  given"  in  the  "  dreadful  trance"  of  their 
genius,  to  move  our  beings  to  their  foundations,  and  to  make 
us  better  or  worse,  lower  or  higher  men,  according  to  their 
pleasure.  Yet  true  it  is,  and  pitiful  as  true,  that  these 
"  Makers" — themselves  made  of  the  finest  clay — have  often 
been  "marred,"  and  that  the  history  of  poets  is  one  of  the 
saddest  and  most  humbling  in  the  records  of  the  world — sad 
and  humbling  especially,  because  the  poet  is  ever  seen  side  by 
side  with  his  own  ideal,  that  graven  image  of  himself  he  has 
set  up  with  his  own  hands,  and  his  failure  or  fall  is  judged  ac- 
cordingly. Cowper  says  in  his  correspondence,  "  I  have  late- 
ly finished  eight  volumes  of  Johnson's  '  Lives  of  the  Poets;' 
in  all  that  number  I  observe  but  one  man  whose  mind  seems 
to  have  had  the  slightest  tincture  of  religion,  and  he  was  hard- 
ly in  his  senses.  His  name  was  Collins.  But  from  the  lives 
of  all  the  rest  there  is  but  one  inference  to  be  drawn — that 
poets  are  a  very  worthless,  wicked  set  of  people."  This  is 
certainly  too  harsh,  since  these  lives  include  the  names  of  Ad- 
dison,  Watts,  Young,  and  Milton ;  but  it  contains  a  portion 
of  truth.  Poets,  as  a  tribe,  have  been  rather  a  worthless, 
wicked  set  of  people ;  and  certainly  Edgar  A.  Poe,  instead  of  be- 
ing an  exception,  was  probably  the  most  worthless  and  wicked 
of  all  his  fraternity. 

And  yet  we  must  say,  in  justice,  that  the  very  greatest  po- 
ets have  been  good  as  well  as  great.  Shakspeare,  judging 
him  by  his  class  and  age,  was  undoubtedly,  to  say  the  least,  a 
respectable  member  of  society,  as  well  as  a  warmhearted 
and  generous  man.  Dante  and  Milton  we  need  only  name. 
And  these  are  "  the  first  three"  in  the  poetic  army.  Words- 
worth, Young,  Cowper,  Southey,  Bowles,  Crabbe,  Pollok,  are 
inferior  but  still  great  names,  and  they  were  all,  in  different 
measures,  good  men.  And  of  late  years,  indeed,  the  instances 
of  depraved  genius  have  become  rarer  and  rarer  ;  so  much  so, 
that  we  are  disposed  to  trace  a  portion  of  Poe's  renown  to 


EDGAR    A.    TOE.  327 


the  fact  that  he  stood  forth  an  exception  so  gross,  glar- 
ing, and  defiant,  to  what  was  promising  to  become  a  general 
rule. 

In  character  he  was  certainly  one  of  the  strangest  anoma- 
lies in  the  history  of  mankind.  Many  men  as  dipsipated  as  he 
have  had  warm  hearts,  honorable  feelings,  and  have  been  lov- 
ed and  pitied  by  all.  Many,  in  every  other  respect  worthless, 
have  had  some  one  or  two  redeeming  points ;  and  the  combi- 
nation of  "  one  virtue  and  a  thousand  crimes"  has  not  been 
uncommon.  Others  have  the  excuse  of  partial  derangement 
for  errors  otherwise  monstrous  and  unpardonable.  But  none 
of  these  pleas  can  be  made  for  Poe.  He  was  no  more  a  gen- 
tleman than  he  was  a  saint.  His  heart  was  as  rotten  as  his 
conduct  was  infamous.  He  knew  not  what  the  terms  honor 
and  honorable  meant.  He  had  absolutely  no  virtue  or  good 
quality,  unless  you  call  remorse  a  virtue,  and  despair  a  grace. 
Some  have  called  him  mad ;  but  we  confess  we  see  no  evi- 
dence of  this  in  his  history.  He  showed  himself,  in  many  in- 
stances, a  cool,  calculating,  deliberate  blackguard.  His  intel- 
lect was  of  the  clearest,  sharpest,  and  most  decisive  kind.  A 
large  heart  has  often  beat  in  the  bosom  of  a  debauchee ;  but 
Poe  had  not  one  spark  of  genuine  tenderness,  unless  it  were 
for  his  wife,  whose  heart,  nevertheless,  and  constitution,  he 
broke — hurrying  her  to  a  premature  grave,  that  he  might 
write  "  Annabel  Lee"  and  "  The  Raven  !"  His  conduct  to 
his  patron,  and  to  the  lady  mentioned  in  his  memoirs,  whom 
he  threatened  to  cover  with  infamy  if  she  did  not  lend  him 
money,  was  purely  diabolical.  He  was,  in  short,  a  combina- 
tion in  almost  equal  proportions,  of  the  fiend,  the  brute,  and 
the  genius.  One  might  call  him  one  of  the  Gadarene  swine, 
filled  with  a  devil,  and  hurrying  down  a  steep  place  to  perish 
in  the  waves  ;  but  none  could  deny  that  he  was  a  "  swine  of 
genius." 

He  has  been  compared  to  Swift,  to  Burns,  to  Sheridan,  and 
to  Hazlitt ;  but  in  none  of  these  cases  does  the  comparison 
fully  hold.  Swift  had  probably  as  black  crimes  on  his  con- 
science as  Poe ;  but  Swift  could  feel  and  could  create  in  others 
the  emotion  of  warmest  friendship,  and  his  outward  conduct 
was  irreproachable — it  was  otherwise  with  Poe.  Burns  had 
many  errors,  poor  fellow  !  but  they  were  "  all  of  the  flesh 


328  MISCELLANEOUS    SKETCHES 


none  of  the  spirit ;"  he  was  originally  one  of  the  noblest  of 
natures,  and  during  all  his  career  nothing  mean,  or  dishonor- 
able, or  black-hearted  was  ever  charged  against  him  ;  he  was 
an  erring  man — but  still  a  man.  Sheridan  was  a  sad  scamp, 
but  had  a  kind  of  bonhommie  about  him  which  carried  off  in 
part  your  feeling  of  disgust ;  and,  although  false  to  his  party, 
he  was  in  general  true  to  his  friends.  Hazlitt's  faults  were 
deep  and  dark;  but  he  was  what  Poe  was  not — an  intensely 
honest  man  ;  and  he  paid  the  penalty  thereof  in  unheard-of 
abuse  and  proscription.  In  order  to  parallel  Poe,  we  must 
go  back  to  Savage  and  Dermody.  If  our  readers  will  turn  to 
the  first  or  second  volumes  of  the  "  Edinburgh  Review,"  they 
will  find  an  account  of  the  last-mentioned,  which  will  remind 
them  very  much  of  Poe's  dark  and  discreditable  history. 
Dermody,  like  Poe,  was  a  habitual  drunkard,  licentious,  false, 
treacherous,  and  capable  of  everything  that  was  mean,  base, 
and  malignant ;  but,  unlike  Poe,  his  genius  was  not  far  above 
mediocrity.  Hartley  Coleridge,  too,  may  recur  to  some  as  a 
case  in  point;  but  he  was  a  harmless  being,  and  a  thorough 
gentleman — amiable,  and,  as  the  phrase  goes,  "  nobody's  ene- 
my but  his  own." 

How  are  we  to  account  for  this  sad  and  miserable  story  ? 
That  Poe's  circumstances  were  precarious  from  the  first — that 
he  was  left  an  orphan — that  without  his  natural  protector  he 
became  early  exposed  to  temptation — that  his  life  was  wander- 
ing and  unsettled — all  this  does  not  explain  the  utter  and 
reckless  abandonment  of  his  conduct,  far  less  his  systematic 
want  of  truth,  and  the  dark  sinistrous  malice  which  rankled 
in  his  bosom.  Habitual  drunkenness  does  indeed  tend  to 
harden  the  heart ;  but,  if  Poe  had  possessed  any  heart  original- 
ly, it  might,  as  well  as  in  the  case  of  other  dissipated  men  of  ge- 
nius, have  resisted,  and  only  in  part  yielded  to  the  induration;  and 
why  did  he  permit  himself  to  become  the  abject  slave  of  the 
vice  ?  The  poet  very  properly  puts  "  lust  hard  by  hate"  (and 
hence,  perhaps,  the  proverbial  fierceness  of  the  bull),  and  Poe 
was  as  licentious  as  he  was  intemperate ;  but  the  question  re- 
curs, Why  ?  We  are  driven  to  one  of  two  suppositions : 
either  that  his  moral  nature  was  more  than  usually  depraved 
ab  origine — that,  as  some  have  maintained,  "  conscience  was 
omitted"  in  his  constitution ;  or  that,  by  the  unrestrained  in- 


EDGAR    A.    POE.  329 


dulgence  of  his  passions,  he,  as  John  Bunyan  has  it,  u  tempt- 
ed the  devil,"  and  became  the  bound  victim  of  infernal  influ- 
ence. In  this  age  of  scepticism  such  a  theory  is  sure  to  be 
laughed  at,  but  is  not  the  less  likely  to  be  true.  If  ever  man 
in  modern  times  resembled  at  least  a  demoniac,  "  exceeding 
fierce,  and  dwelling  among  tombs" — possessed  now  by  a  spirit 
of  fury,  and  now  by  a  spirit  of  falsehood,  and  now  by  an  "  un- 
clean spirit" — it  was  Poe,  as  he  rushed  with  his  eyes  open  in- 
to every  excess  of  riot ;  or  entered  the  house  of  his  intended 
bride  on  the  night  before  the  anticipated  marriage,  and  com- 
mitted such  outrages  as  to  necessitate  a  summons  of  the  po- 
lice to  remove  the  drunk  and  raving  demon  ;  or  ran  howling 
through  the  midnight  like  an  evil  spirit  on  his  way  to  the  Red 
Sea,  battered  by  the  rains,  beaten  by  the  winds,  waving  aloft 
his  arms  in  frenzy,  cursing  loud  and  deep  man,  himself,  God, 
and  proclaiming  that  he  was  already  damned,  and  damned  for 
ever.  In  demoniac  possession,  too,  of  a  different  kind,  it  was 
that  he  fancied  the  entire  secret  of  the  making  of  the  universe 
to  be  revealed  to  him,  and  went  about  everywhere  shouting, 
"  Eureka  " — a  title,  too,  which  he  gave  to  the  strange  and 
splendid  lecture  in  which  he  recorded  the  memorable  illusion. 
And  when  the  spirit  of  talk  came  at  times  mightily  upon  him 
— when  the  "  witch  element"  seemed  to  surround  him — when 
his  brow  flushed  like  an  evening  cloud — when  his  eyes  glared 
wild  lightning — when  his  hair  stood  up  like  the  locks  of  a 
Bacchante — when  his  chest  heaved,  and  his  voice  rolled  and 
swelled  like  subterranean  thunder — men,  admiring,  fearing, 
and  wondering,  said,  "  He  hath  a  demon,  yea,  seven  devils  are 
entered  into  him."  His  tongue  was  then  "  set  on  fire,"  but 
set  on  fire  of  hell ;  and  its  terrific  inspiration  rayed  out  of  ev- 
ery gesture  and  look,  and  spake  in  every  tone. 

"  Madness  !"  it  will  be  cried  again ;  but  that  word  does  not 
fully  express  the  nature  of  Poe's  excitement  in  these  fearful 
hours.  There  was  no  incoherence  either  in  his  matter  or  in 
his  words.  There  was,  amid  all  the  eloquence  and  poetry  of  his 
talk,  a  vein  of  piercing,  searching,  logical,  but  sinister  thought. 
All  his  faculties  were  shown  in  the  same  lurid  light,  and  touched 
by  the  same  torch  of  the  Furies.  All  blazed  emulous  of  each 
other's  fire.  The  awful  Soul  which  had  entered  his  soul  form- 
ed an  exact  counterpart  to  it,  and  the  haggard  "  dream  was 


330  MISCELLANEOUS    SKETCHES. 


one."     One  is  reminded  of  the  words  of  Aird,  in  his  humor 
tai  poem,  tl  The  Demoniac  :" — 

''•  Perhaps  by  hopeless  passions  bound, 
And  render'd  weak,  the  mastery  a  demon  o'er  him  found : 
Reason  and  duty  all,  all  life,  his  being  all  became 
•Subservient  to  the  wild,  strange  law  that  overbears  his  frame ; 
And  in  the  dead  hours  of  the  night,  when  happier  children  lie 
In  slumbers  seal'd,  he  journeys  far  the  flowing  rivers  by. 
And  oft  he  haunts  the  sepulchres,  where  the  thin  shoals  of  ghosts 
Flit  shiv'rhig  from  death's  chilling  dews  ;  to  their  unbodied  hosts 
That  churm  through  night  their  feeble  plaint,  he  yells;  at  the  red  morn 
Meets  the  great  armies  of  the  winds,  high  o'er  the  mountains  borne, 
Leaping  against  their  viewless  rage,  tossing  his  arms  on  high, 
And  hanging  balanced  o'er  sheer  steeps  against  the  morning  sky." 

We  are  tempted  to  add  the  following  lines,  partly  for  their 
Dantesque  power,  and  partly  because  they  describe  still  more 
energetically  than  the  last  quotation  such  a  tremendous  pos- 
session as  was  Herman's  in  fiction,  and  Poe's  in  reality  : — 

"  lie  rose ;  a  smother'd  gleam 

Was  on  his  brow ;  with  fierce  motes  roll'd  his  eye's  distemper'd  beam  ; 
He  smiled,  'twas  as  the  lightning  of  a  hope  about  to  die 
For  ever  from  the  furrow1  d  brows  of  hell's  eternity  ; 
Like  sun-warm'd  snakes,  rose  on  his  head  a  storm  of  golden  hair, 
Tangled  ;  and  thus  on  Miriam  fell  hot  breathings  of  despair  : 
'  Perish  the  breasts  that  gave  me  milk  !  yea,  in  thy  mouldering  heart  : 
Good  thrifty  roots  I'll  plant,  to  stay  next  time  my  hunger's  smart. 
Red-vein' d  derived  apples  I  shall  eat  with  savage  haste, 
And  see  thy  life-blood  blushing  through,  and  glory  in  the  taste.'  " 

Herman,  in  the  poem,  has  a  demon  sent  into  his  heart,  m 
divine  sovereignty,  and  that  he  may  be  cured  by  the  power  of 
Christ.  But  Poe  had  Satan  substituted  for  soul,  apparently 
to  torment  him  before  the  time  ;  and  we  do  not  see  him  ere  the 
end  sitting,  "  clothed,  and  in  his  right  mind,  at  the  feet  of  Je- 
sus." He  died,  as  he  had  lived,  a  raving,  cursing,  self-con- 
demned, conscious  cross  between  the  fiend  and  the  genius, 
believing  nothing,  hoping  nothing,  loving  nothing,  fearing 
nothing — himself  his  own  god  and  his  own  devil — a  solitary 
wretch,  who  had  cut  off  every  bridge  that  connected  him  with 
the  earth  around  and  the  heavens  above.  This,  however,  let 
us  say  in  his  favor — he  has  died  "  alone  in  his  iniquity  ;"  he 
has  never,  save  by  his  example  (so  far  as  we  know  his  works), 
sought  to  shake  faith  or  sap  morality.  His  writings  may  be 


EDGAR    A.     POE.  331 


morbid,  but  they  are  pure ;  and,  if  his  life  was  bad  has  he  not 
left  it  as  a  legacy  to  moral  anatomists,  who  have  met  and  won- 
dered over  it,  although  they  have  given  up  all  attempt  at  dis- 
section or  diagnosis,  shaking  the  head,  and  leaving  him  alone  in 
its  shroud,  with  the  solemn  whispered  warning  to  the  world,  and 
especially  to  its  stronger  and  brighter  spirits,  "  Beware  !" 

A  case  so  strange  as  Poe's  compels  us  into  new  and  more 
searching  forms  of  critical,  as  well  as  of  moral  analysis.  Genius 
has  very  generally  been  ascribed  to  him ;  but  some  will  resist 
and  deny  the  ascription — proceeding  partly  upon  peculiar  no- 
tions of  what  genius  is,  and  partly  from  a  very  natural  reluc- 
tance to  concede  to  a  wretch  so  vile  a  gift  so  noble,  and  in  a 
degree,  too,  so  unusually  large.  Genius  has  often  been  defined 
as  something  inseparably  connected  with  the  genial  nature.  If 
this  definition  be  correct,  Poe  was  not  a  genius  any  more  than 
Swift,  for  geniality  neither  he  nor  his  writings  possessed.  But  if 
genius  mean  a  compound  of  imagination  and  inventiveness, 
original  thought  heated  by  passion  and  accompanied  by  power 
of  fancy,  Poe  was  a  man  of  great  genius.  In  wanting  genial- 
ity, however,  he  wanted  all  that  makes  genius  lovely  and  be- 
loved, at  once  beautiful  and  dear.  A  man  of  genius,  without 
geniality,  is  a  mountain  clad  in  snow,  companioned  by  tem- 
pests, and  visited  only  by  hardy  explorers  who  love  sublime 
nakedness,  and  to  snatch  a  fearful  joy  from  gazing  down  black 
precipices ;  a  man  whose  genius  is  steeped  in  the  genial  nature, 
is  an  autuma  landscape,  suggesting  not  only  images  of  beauty, 
and  giving  thrills  of  delight,  but  yielding  peaceful  and  plente- 
ous fruits,  and  in  which  the  heart  finds  a  rest  and  a  home. 
From  the  one  the  timid,  the  weak,  and  the  gentle  retire  in  a 
terror  which  overpowers  their  admiration  ;  but  in  the  other  the 
lowest  and  feeblest  find  shelter  and  repose.  Even  Dante  and 
Milton,  owing  to  the  excess  of  their  intellectual  and  imagina- 
tive powers  over  their  genial  feelings,  are  less  loved  than  ad- 
mired ;  while  the  vast  supremacy  of  Shakspeare  is  due,  not 
merely  to  his  universal  genius,  but  to  the  predominance  of 
geniality  and  heart  in  all  his  writings.  Many  envy  and  even 
hate  Dante  and  Milton;  and  had  Shakspeare  only  written  hia 
loftier  tragedies,  many  might  have  hated  and  envied  him  too ; 
but  who  can  entertain  any  such  feelings  for  the  author  of  the 
"  Comedy  of  Errors"  and  "  Twelfth  Night,"  the  creator  of  Fal- 


332  MISCELLANEOUS    SKETCHES. 


staff,  Dogberry,  and  Verres  ?  If  genius  be  the  sun  geniality 
is  the  atmosphere  through  which  alone  his  beams  can  penetrate 
with  power,  or  be  seen  with  pleasure. 

Poe  is  distinguished  by  many  styles  and  many  manners. 
He  is  the  author  of  fictions  as  matter-of-fact  in  theii  construc- 
tion and  language  as  the  stories  of  Defoe,  and  of  tales  as  wierd 
and  wonderful  as  those  of  Hoffman  ;  of  amatory  strains  trem- 
bling, if  not  with  heart,  with  passion,  and  suffused  with  the 
purple  glow  of  love,  and  of  poems,  dirges  either  in  form  or  in 
spirit,  into  which  the  genius  of  desolation  has  shed  its  dreari- 
est essence ;  of  verses,  gay  with  apparent,  but  shallow  joy,  and 
of  others  dark  with  a  misery  which  reminds  us  of  the  helpless, 
hopeless,  infinite  misery,  which  sometimes  visits  the  souls  in 
dreams.  But,  amid  all  this  diversity  of  tone  and  of  subject,  the 
leading  qualities  of  his  mind  are  obvious.  These  consist  of 
strong  imagination — an  imagination,  however,  more  fertile  in 
incidents,  forms,  and  characters,  than  in  images ;  keen  power 
of  analysis,  rather  than  synthetic  genius ;  immense  inventive- 
ness ;  hot  passions,  cooled  down  by  the  presence  of  art,  till 
they  resemble  sculptured  flame,  or  "  lightning  in  the  hand  of  a 
painted  Jupiter;"  knowledge  rather  recherche  and  varied,  than 
strict,  accurate,  or  profound ;  and  an  unlimited  command  of 
words,  phrases,  musical  combinations  of  sound,  and  all  the 
other  materials  of  an  intellectual  workman.  The  direction  of 
these  powers  was  controlled  principally  by  his  habits  and  cir- 
cumstances. These  made  him  morbid ;  and  his  writings  have 
all  a  certain  morbidity  about  them.  You  say  at  once,  cool 
and  clear  as  most  of  them  are,  these  are  not  the  productions 
of  a  healthy  or  happy  man.  But  surely  never  was  there  such 
a  calm  despair — such  a  fiery  torment  so  cased  in  ice  !  When 
you  compare  the  writings  with  the  known  facts  of  the  author's 
history,  they  appear  to  be  so  like,  and  so  unlike,  his  character. 
You  seem  looking  at  an  inverted  image.  You  have  the  fea- 
tures, but  they  are  discovered  at  an  unexpected  angle.  You 
see  traces  of  the  misery  of  a  confirmed  debauchee,  but  none  of 
his  disconnected  ravings,  or  of  the  partial  imbecility  which 
often  falls  upon  his  powers.  There  is  a  strict,  almost  logical, 
method,  in  his  wildest  productions.  He  tells  us  himself  that 
he  wrote  "  The  Raven"  as  coolly  as  if  he  had  been  working 
out  a  mathematical  problem.  His  frenzy,  if  that  name  must 


EDOAB.    A.    POK.  333 


be  given  to  the  strange  fire  which  was  in  him,  is  a  conscious  one; 
he  feels  his  own  pulse  when  it  is  at  the  wildest,  and  looks  at 
his  foaming  lips  in  the  looking-glass. 

Poe  was  led  by  a  singular  attraction  to  all  dark,  dreadful, 
and  disgusting  objects  and  thoughts :  maelstroms,  mysteries, 
murders,  mummies,  premature  burials,  excursions  to  the  moon, 
solitary  mansions  surrounded  by  mist  and  weighed  down  by 
mysterious  dooms,  lonely  tarns,  trembling  to  the  winds  of  au- 
tumn, and  begirt  by  the  shivering  ghosts  of  woods — these  are 
the  materials  which  his  wild  imagination  loves  to  work  with, 
and  out  of  them  to  weave  the  most  fantastic  and  dismal  of 
worlds.  Yet  there's  "  magic  in  the  web."  You  often  revolt 
at  his  subjects ;  but  no  sooner  does  he  enter  on  them,  than  your 
attention  is  riveted,  you  lend  him  your  ears — nay,  that  is  a  fee- 
ble word,  you  surrender  your  whole  being  to  him  for  a  season, 
although  it  be  as  you  succumb,  body  and  soul,  to  the  dominion 
of  a  nightmare.  What  greatly  increases  effect,  as  in  "  Gulli- 
ver's Travels,"  is  the  circumstantiality  with  which  he  recounts 
the  most  amazing  and  incredible  things.  His  tales,  too,  are 
generally  cast  into  the  autobiographical  form,  which  adds  much 
to  their  living  vraisemblance  and  vivid  power.  It  is  Cole- 
ridge's "  Old  Mariner"  over  again.  Strange,  wild,  terrible,  is 
the  tale  he  has  to  tell ;  haggard,  wo-begone,  unearthly  is  the 
appearance  of  the  narrator.  Every  one  at  first,  like  the  wed- 
ding guest,  is  disposed  to  shrink  and  beat  his  breast ;  but  he 
holds  you  with  his  glittering  eye,  he  forces  you  to  follow  him 
into  his  own  enchanted  region,  and  once  there,  you  forget  every- 
thing, your  home,  your  friends,  your  creed,  your  very  personal 
identity,  and  become  swallowed  up  like  a  straw  in  the  maelstrom 
of  his  story,  and  forget  to  breathe  till  it  is  ended,  and  the 
mysterious  tale-teller  is  gone.  And  during  all  the  wild  and 
whirling  narrative,  the  same  chilly  glitter  has  continued  to 
shine  in  his  eye,  his  blood  has  never  warmed,  and  he  has  never 
exalted  his  voice  above  a  thrilling  whisper. 

Poe's  power  may  perhaps  be  said  to  be  divisible  into  two 
parts :  first,  that  of  adding  an  air  of  circumstantial  verity  to 
incredibilities ;  and,  secondly,  that  of  throwing  a  wierd  lustre 
upon  commonplace  events.  He  tells  fiction  so  minutely,  and 
with  such  apparent  simplicity  and  sincerity,  that  you  almost 
believe  it  true ;  and  he  so  combines  and  so  recounts  such  inci- 


334  MISCELLANEOUS    SKETCHES. 


dents  as  you  meet  with  every  day  in  the  newspapers,  that  you 
feel  truth  to  be  stranger  far  than  fiction.  Look,  as  a  speci- 
men of  the  first,  to  his  "  Descent  into  the  Maelstrom,"  and  to 
his  "  Hans  Pfaal's  Journey  to  the  Moon."  Both  are  impos- 
sible— the  former  as  much  so  as  the  latter — but  he  tells  them 
with  such  Dante-like  directness,  and  such  Defoe-like  minute- 
ness, holding  his  watch,  and  marking,  as  it  were,  every  second 
in  the  progress  of  each  stupendous  lie,  that  you  rub  your  eyes 
at  the  close,  and  ask  the  question,  Might  not  all  this  actually 
have  occurred  ?  And  then  turn  to  the  "  Murders  in  the  Rue 
St.  Morgue,"  or  to  the  "  Mystery  of  Marie  Roget,"  and  see 
how,  by  the  disposition  of  the  drapery  he  throws  over  little  or 
ordinary  incidents,  connected,  indeed,  with  an  extraordinary 
catastrophy,  he  lends 

"  The  light  which  never  was  on  sea  or  shore" 

to  streets  of  revelry  and  vulgar  sin,  and  to  streams  whose 
sluggish  waters  are  never  disturbed  save  by  the  plash  of  mur- 
dered victims,  or  by  the  plunge  of  suicides  desperately  hurl- 
ing their  bodies  to  the  fishes,  and  their  souls  to  the  flames. 

In  one  point,  Poe  bears  a  striking  resemblance  to  his  own 
illustrious  countryman,  Brockden  Brown — neither  resort  to 
agency  absolutely  supernatural,  in  order  to  produce  their  ter- 
rific effects.  They  despise  to  start  a  ghost  from  the  grave — 
they  look  upon  this  as  a  cheap  and  facie  expedient — they  ap- 
peal to  the  "  mightier  might"  of  the  human  passions,  or  to 
those  strange  unsolved  phenomena  in  the  human  mind,  which 
the  terms  mesmerism  and  somnambulism  serve  rather  to  dis- 
guise than  to  discover,  and  sweat  out  from  their  native  soil 
superstitions  far  more  powerful  than  those  of  the  past.  Once 
only  does  Poe  approach  the  brink  of  the  purely  preternatural 
— it  is  in  that  dreary  tale,  the  "  Fall  of  the  House  of  Usher;" 
and  yet  nothing  so  discovers  the  mastery  of  the  writer  as  the 
manner  in  which  he  avoids,  while  nearing,  the  gulf.  There  is 
really  nothing,  after  all,  in  the  strange  incidents  of  that  story 
but  what  natural  principles  can  explain.  But  Poe  so  arranges 
and  adjusts  the  singular  circumstances  to  each  other,  and 
weaves  around  them  such  an  artful  mist,  that  they  produce  a 
most  unearthly  effect.  Perhaps  some  may  think  that  he  has 
fairly  crossed  the  line  in  that  dialogue  between  Charmian  and 


EDGAR    A.    POE.  335 


Iras,  describing  the  conflagration  of  the  world.  But,  even 
there,  how  admirably  does  he  produce  a  certain  feeling  of  pro- 
bability by  the  management  of  the  natural  causes  which  he 
brings  in  to  produce  the  catastrophe.  He  burns  his  old  witch- 
mother,  the  earth,  scientifically  !  We  must  add  that  the  above 
is  the  only  respect  in  which  Poe  resembles  Brown.  Brown 
was  a  virtuous  and  amiable  man,  and  his  works,  although 
darkened  by  unsettled  religious  views,  breathe  a  fine  spirit  of 
humanity.  Poe  wonders  at,  and  hates  man ;  Brown  wonders 
at,  but  at  the  same  time  pities,  loves,  and  hopes  in  him. 
Brown  mingled  among  men  like  a  bewildered  angel ;  Poe  like 
a  prying  fiend. 

We  have  already  alluded  to  the  singular  power  of  analysis 
possessed  by  this  strange  being.  This  is  chiefly  conspicuous 
in  those  tales  of  his  which  turn  upon  circumstantial  evidence. 
No  lawyer  or  judge  has  ever  equalled  Poe  in  the  power  he 
manifests  of  sifting  evidence — of  balancing  probabilities — of 
finding  the  multum  of  a  large  legal  case  in  the  parvum  of 
some  minute  and  well-nigh  invisible  point — and  in  construct- 
ing the  real  story  out  of  a  hundred  dubious  and  conflicting 
incidents.  What  scales  he  carries  with  him !  how  fine  and 
tremulous  with  essential  justice !  And  with  what  a  micro- 
scopic eye  he  watches  every  footprint !  Letters  thrown  loose 
on  the  mantel-piece,  bell-ropes,  branches  of  trees,  handker- 
chiefs, &c.,  become  to  him  instinct  with  meaning,  and  point 
with  silent  finger  to  crime  and  to  punishment.  And  to  think 
of  this  subtle  algebraic  power,  combined  with  such  a  strong 
ideality,  and  with  such  an  utterly  corrupted  moral  nature  ! 
Surely  none  of  the  hybrids  which  geology  has  dug  out  of  the 
graves  of  chaos  and  exhibited  to  our  shuddering  view  is  half  so 
strange  a  compound  as  was  Edgar  A.  Poe.  We  have  hitherto 
scarcely  glanced  at  his  poetry.  It,  although  lying  in  a  very 
short  compass,  is  of  various  merit :  it  is  an  abridgment  of  the 
man  in  his  strength  and  weakness.  Its  chief  distinction,  as  a 
whole,  from  his  prose,  is  its  peculiar  music.  That,  like  all 
his  powers,  is  fitful,  changeful,  varying ;  but  not  more  so  than 
to  show  the  ever-varying  moods  of  his  mind,  acting  on  a  pecu- 
liar and  indefinite  theory  of  sound.  The  alpha  and  omega  of 
that  theory  may  be  condensed  in  the  word  "  reiteration." 
He  knows  the  effect  which  can  be  produced  by  ringing  changes 


336  MISCELLANEOUS    SKETCHED 


on  particular  words.  The  strength  of  all  his  strains  conse- 
quently lies  in  their  chorus,  or  "  oure  turn,"  as  we  call  it  in 
Scotland.  We  do  not  think  that  he  could  have  succeeded  in 
sustaining  the  harmonies  or  keeping  up  the  interest  of  a  large 
poem.  But  his  short  flights  are  exceedingly  beautiful,  and 
some  of  his  poems  are  miracles  of  melody.  All  our  readers 
are  familiar  with  "  The  Raven."  It  is  a  dark  world  in  itself; 
it  rises  in  your  sky  suddenly  as  the  cloud  like  a  man's  hand 
rose  in  the  heaven  of  Palestine,  and  covers  all  the  horizon 
with  the  blackness  of  darkness.  As  usual  in  his  writings,  it 
is  but  a  common  event  idealised ;  there  is  nothing  supernatu- 
ral or  even  extraordinary  in  the  incident  recounted ; — but  the 
reiteration  of  the  one  dreary  word  "nevermore;"  the  effect 
produced  by  seating  the  solemn  bird  of  yore  upon  the  bust  of 
Pallas ;  the  manner  in  which  the  fowl  with  its  fiery  eyes  be- 
comes the  evil  conscience  or  memory  of  the  lonely  widower ; 
and  the  management  of  the  time,  the  season,  and  the  circum- 
stances— all  unite  in  making  the  Raven  in  its  flesh  and  blood 
a  far  more  terrific  apparition  than  ever  from  the  shades  made 
night  hideous,  while  "  revisiting  the  glimpses  of  the  moon." 
The  poem  belongs  to  a  singular  class  of  poetic  uniques,  each 
of  which  is  itself  enough  to  make  a  reputation,  such  as  Cole- 
ridge's "  Rime  of  the  Anciente  Marinere,"  or  "  Christabel," 
and  Aird's  "  Devil's  Dream  upon  Mount  Acksbeck" — poems 
in  which  some  one  new  and  generally  dark  idea  is  wrought 
out  into  a  whole  so  strikingly  complete  and  self-contained  as 
to  resemble  creation,  and  in  which  thought,  imagery,  language, 
and  music  combine  to  produce  a  similar  effect,  and  are  made 
to  chime  together  like  bells.  What  entireness  of  effect,  for 
instance,  is  produced  in  the  "  Devil's  Dream,"  by  the  unearthly 
theme,  the  strange  title,  the  austere  and  terrible  figures,  the 
singular  verse,  and  the  knotty  and  contorted  language;  and 
in  the  "  Rime  of  the  Anciente  Marinere,"  by  the  ghastly  form 
of  the  narrator — the  wild  rythm,  the  new  mythology,  and  the 
exotic  diction  of  the  tale  he  tells  !  So  Poe's  "  Raven"  has 
the  unity  of  a  tree  blasted,  trunk,  and  twigs,  and  root,  by  a 
flash  of  lightning.  Never  did  melancholy  more  thoroughly 
"mark  for  its  own"  any  poem  than  this.  All  is  in  intense 
keeping.  Short  as  the  poem  is,  it  has  a  beginning,  middle, 
and  end.  Its  commencement  how  abrupt  and  striking — the 


EDGAR.    A.    TOE.  337 


time  a  December  midnight — the  poet  a  solitary  man,  sitting, 
"  weak  and  weary,"  poring  in  helpless  fixity,  but  with  no 
profit  or  pleasure,  over  a  black-letter  volume ;  the  fire  half 
expired,  and  the  dying  embers  haunted  by  their  own  ghosts,  and 
shivering  above  the  hearth  !  The  middle  is  attained  when  the 
raven  mounts  the  bust  of  Pallas,  and  is  fascinating  the  soli- 
tary wretch  by  his  black,  glittering  plumage,  and  his  measured, 
melancholy  croak.  And  the  end  closes  as  with  the  wings  of 
night  over  the  sorrow  of  the  unfortunate,  and  these  dark  words 
conclude  the  tale : — 

"  And  my  soul  from  out  that  shadow  that  lies  floating  on  the  floor, 
Shall  be  lifted  Nevermore." 

You  feel  as  if  the  poem  might  have  been  penned  by  the  finger 
of  one  of  the  damned. 

The  same  shadow  of  unutterable  wo  rests  upon  several  of 
his  smaller  poems,  and  the  efiect  is  greatly  enhanced  by  their 
gay  and  song-like  rhythm.  That  madness  or  misery  which 
sings  out  its  terror  or  grief,  is  always  the  most  desperate.  It 
is  like  a  burden  of  hell  set  to  an  air  of  heaven.  "  Ulalume" 
might  have  been  written  by  Coleridge  during  the  sad  middle 
portion  of  his  life.  There  is  a  sense  of  dreariness  and  deso- 
lation as  of  the  last  of  earth's  autumns,  which  we  find  nowhere 
else  in  such  perfection.  What  a  picture  these  words  convey 
to  the  imagination : — 

"  The  skies  they  were  ashen  and  sober ; 
The  leaves  they  were  crisped  and  sere — 
The  leaves  they  were  withering  and  sere, 
It  was  night  in  the  lonesome  October 
Of  my  most  immemorial  year. 
It  was  hard  by  the  dim  lake  of  Auber, 
In  the  misty  mid-region  of  Weir — 
It  was  down  by  the  dark  tarn  of  Auber, 
In  the  ghoul-haunted  woodland  of  Weir." 

These  to  many  will  appear  only  words ;  but  what  wondrous 
words.  What  a  spell  they  wield !  Like  a  wasted  haggard 
face,  they  have  no  bloom  or  beauty  ;  but  what  a  tale  they  tell ! 
Weir — Auber — where  are  they  ?  They  exist  not,  except  in 
the  writer's  imagination,  and  in  yours,  for  the  instant  they  are 
uttered,  a  misty  picture,  with  a  tarn,  dark  as  a  murderer's 
15 


538  MISCELLANEOUS    SKETCHES. 


eye,  below,  and  the  last  thin,  yellow  leaves  of  October  flutter- 
ing above — exponents  both  of  a  misery  which  scorns  the  name 
of  sorrow,  and  knows  neither  limit  nor  termination — is  hung 
up  in  the  chamber  of  your  soul  for  ever.  What  power,  too, 
there  is  in  the  "  Haunted  Palace,"  particularly  in  the  last 
words,  "They  laugh,  but  smile  no  more!"  Dante  has  no- 
thing superior  in  all  those  chilly  yet  fervent  words  of  his, 
where  "  the  ground  burns  frore,  and  cold  performs  the  effect 
of  fire." 

We  must  now  close  our  sketch  of  Poe  ;  and  we  do  so  with 
feelings  of  wonder,  pity,  and  awful  sorrow,  tempted  to  look  up 
to  heaven,  and  to  cry,  "  Lord,  why  didst  thou  make  this  man 
in  vain  ?"  Yet  perhaps  there  was  even  in  him  some  latent 
spark  of  goodness,  which  may  even  now  be  developing  itself 
under  a  kindlier  sky.  He  has  gone  far  away  from  the  misty 
mid-region  of  Weir;  his  dreams  of  cosmogonies  have  been 
tested  by  the  searching  light  of  Eternity's  truth  ;  his  errors 
have  received  the  reward  that  was  meet ;  and  we  cannot  but 
say,  ere  we  close,  Peace  even  to  the  well-nigh  putrid  dust  of 
Edgar  A.  Poe. 


NO.    VI.-SIR  EDWARD  LITTON  BULWER.* 

THE  attention  of  the  Scottish  public  has  of  late  been  strong- 
ly attracted  to  Sir  Edward  Lytton  Bulwer,  through  his  visit 
to  Edinburgh ;  and  the  elegant  and  scholarly  addresses  he  de- 
livered there.  We  propose  taking  the  opportunity  so  lawfully 
and  gracefully  furnished  by  his  recent  appearances  among  us, 
to  analyse  again  at  some  length,  and  in  a  critical  yet  kindly 
spirit,  the  leading  elements  of  his  literary  character  and  genius. 

Bulwer  has  been  now  twenty-seven  years  before  the  public, 
and  has,  during  that  period,  filled  almost  every  phase  of  au- 
thorship and  of  thought.  He  has  been  a  critic,  an  editor  a 

*  The  Novels  and  Romances  of  Sir  E.  B.  Lyttou,  Bart. 


SIR    EDWARD    LVTTON    BULWER.  339 


dramatist,  a  historian,  a  politician,  a  speculator  in  metaphy- 
sics, a  poet,  a  novelist,  the  editor  of  a  magazine,  a  member  of 
Parliament,  a  subject  of  the  cold-water  cure,  a  philosophical 
Radical,  and  a  moderate  Conservative.  In  his  youth,  he  wor- 
shipped Hazlitt  and  Shelley ;  in  his  middle  age,  he  vibrated 
between  Brougham  and  Coleridge;  and,  of  late,  he  associates 
with  Alison  and  Aytoun  !  He  has  poured  out  books  in  all 
manners,  on  all  subjects,  and  in  all  styles ;  and  his  profusion 
might  have  seemed  that  of  a  spendthrift,  if  it  had  not  been  for 
the  stores  in  the  distance  which  even  his  scatterings  by  the 
wayside  revealed.  For  versatility  of  genius,  variety  of  intel- 
lectual experience,  and  the  brilliant  popularity  which  has  fol- 
lowed him  in  all  Ins  diversified  career,  he  reminds  us  rather 
of  Goethe  or  Voltaire  than  of  any  living  author.  Like  them 
he  has  worshipped  the  god  Proteus,  and  so  devoutly  and 
diversely  worshipped  him,  that  he  might  almost,  at  times,  be 
confounded  with  the  object  of  his  adoration. 

We  think  decidedly,  however,  that  this  boundless  fertility 
and  elasticity  have  tended  to  lessen  the  general  idea  of  Bul- 
wer's  powers,  and  to  cast  an  air  of  tentative  experiment  and 
rash  adventure  over  many  of  his  works.  Had  he  concen- 
trated himself  upon  some  grand  topic,  his  fame  had  now  been 
equally  wide,  not  less  brilliant,  and  much  more  solid  than  it 
is.  Had  he  taken  some  one  lofty  Acropolis  by  storm,  and 
shown  the  flag  of  his  genius  floating  on  its  summit,  instead  of 
investing  a  hundred  at  once,  he  had  been,  and  been  counted,  a 
greater  general.  We  would  willingly  have  accepted  two  or 
three  superb  novels,  one  large  conclusive  history,  along  with  a 
single  work  of  systematic  and  profound  criticism,  in  exchange 
for  all  that  motley  and  unequal,  although  most  varied  and 
imposing  mass  of  fiction,  history,  plays,  poems,  and  politics, 
which  forms  the  collected  works  of  Sir  E.  Lytton  Bulwer. 

Some  of  Sir  Edward's  admirers  have  ventured  to  compare 
him  to  Shakspeare  and  to  Scott.  Such  comparisons  are  not 
just.  Than  Shakspeare  he  owes  a  great  deal  less  to  nature, 
and  a  great  deal  more  to  culture,  as  well  as  to  that  indomi- 
table perseverance  to  which  he  has  lately  ascribed  so  much  of 
his  success,  so  that  we  may  indeed  call  the  one  the  least,  and 
the  other  the  most  cultivated  of  great  authors ;  and  to  Scott 
he  is  vastly  inferior  in  that  simple  power,  directness  of  aim, 


340  MISCELLANEOUS    SKETCHES. 


natural  dignity,  manly  spirit,  fire,  and  health,  which  rank  him 
immediately  below  Homer.  We  may  here  remark  that,  not- 
withstanding all  that  has  been  said  and  sung  about  the  g<nius 
of  Scott,  we  are  convinced  that  justice  has  never  been  done 
to  one  feature  of  his  novels — we  mean  their  excellence  as 
specimens  of  English  style.  9  Except  in  Burke  and  De  Quin- 
cey,  whose  mode  of  thinking  is  so  very  different,  we  know  of 
no  passages  in  English  prose  which  approach  the  better  parts 
of  the  Waverley  series  in  the  union  of  elegance  and  strength, 
in  manly  force,  natural  grace,  and  noble  rhythmical  cadence. 
Would  that  any  word  of  ours  could  recall  the  numerous  ad- 
mirers of  the  morbid  magnificence  and  barbarous  dissonance 
of  Carlyle's  style ;  of  the  curt  affected  jargon  which  mars  the 
poetic  beauty  of  Emerson's ;  of  the  loose  fantastic  verbiage 
in  which  Dickens  chooses  to  indite  most  of  his  serious  pas- 
sages; and  of  the  labored  antithesis,  uneasy  brilliance,  and 
assumed  carelessness  of  Macaulay ;  and  induce  them  to  take 
up  again  the  neglected  pages  of  Burke,  with  all  the  wondrous 
treasures  of  wisdom,  knowledge,  imagery,  and  language  they 
contain,  and  to  read  night  and  day  Scott's  novels — not  for 
their  story,  or  their  pictures  of  national  manners,  but  for  the 
sake  of  their  wells  of  English  undefiled ;  the  specimens  of  pic- 
turesque, simple,  rich,  and  powerful  writing  which  they  so 
abundantly  contain. 

Bulwer,  too,  although  even  in  his  most  favored  hours  he 
cannot  write  like  Scott,  is  distinguished  by  the  merit  of  his 
style.  It  has  more  point,  if  not  so  much  simplicity ;  if  pos- 
sessing less  strength,  it  has  far  more  brilliance;  and  it  has, 
moreover,  a  certain  classical  charm — a  certain  Attic  elegance 
— a  certain  tinge  of  the  antique — which  few  writers  of  the  age 
can  rival.  If  Disraeli's  mode  of  writing  remind  you  of  the 
gorgeous  dress  of  Jewish  females,  with  their  tiaras  shining  on 
the  brow,  their  diamond  necklaces  gleaming  above  the  breast, 
the  vivid  yellow  or  deep  red  of  their  garments,  their  broidered 
hair,  and  pearls,  and  costly  array,  Bulwer's.  in  his  happier 
vein,  reminds  you  of  the  attire  of  the  Grecian  women,  shod 
with  sandals,  clothed  with  the  simple  yet  elegant  tunic,  and 
bearing  each  on  her  head  a  light  and  tremulous  urn. 

Passing  from  his  style,  we  have  some  remarks  to  make  on 
the  following  points  connected  with  him — the  alleged  non- 


SIR    EDWARD    LYTTON    BULWER.  341 


poetical  nature  of  his  mind,  his  originality,  the  impersonal 
faculty  he  possesses  to  such  a  degree,  his  remaikable  width 
of  mind,  his  dramatic  power,  the  fact  that  with  all  his  fre- 
quent flippancy,  levity,  and  excess  of  point,  he  is  equal  to  all 
the  great  crises  of  his  narrative  ;  and  finally,  to  that  power  or 
principle  of  growth  which  has  been  so  conspicuous  in  his  lite- 
rary history. 

First,  not  a  few  have  maintained  that  Bulwer,  with  all  his 
brilliant  effect  and  eloquence,  is  not,  properly  speaking,  a  poet. 
An  eloquent  detractor  of  his  has  said  : — "  The  author  is  an 
orator,  and  has  tried  to  be  a  poet.  Dickens's  John  the  Car- 
rier was  perpetually  on  the  verge  of  a  joke,  but  never  made 
one  :  Bulwer's  relation  to  poetry  is  of  the  same  provoking 
kind.  The  lips  twitch,  the  face  glows,  the  eyes  light ;  but  the 
joke  is  not  there.  An  exquisite  savoir  faire  has  led  him 
within  sight  of  the  intuitions  of  poetic  instinct.  Laborious 
calculation  has  almost  stood  for  sight,  but  his  maps  and  charts 
are  not  the  earth  and  the  heavens.  His  vision  is  not  a  dream, 
but  a  nightmare ;  you  have  Parnassus  before  you,  but  the 
light  that  never  was  on  sea  or  shore  is  wanting.  The  whole 
reminds  you  of  a  lunar  landscape,  rocks  and  caves  to  spare, 
but  no  atmosphere.  It  is  fairy-land  travelled  by  dark.  How 
you  sigh  even  for  the  chaos,  the  discordia  semina  of  genius, 
while  toiling  through  the  impotent  waste  of  this  sterile  ma- 
turity." 

This  is  vivid  and  vigorous,  but  hardly  just.  We  need  meet 
it  only  by  pronouncing  one  magic  word — "  Zanoni."  Who 
that  ever  read  that  glorious  romance,  with  its  pictures  of  love, 
and  life,  and  death,  and  the  mysteries  of  the  unseen  world ; 
the  fine  dance  of  the  human  and  the  preternatural  elements 
which  are  in  it,  and  keep  time  so  admirably  to  the  music  of 
the  genius  which  has  created  both,  and  the  melting  sublimity 
of  its  close — will  deny  the  author  the  name  of  poet?  Or 
who  that  has  ever  read  those  allegories  and  little  tales  which 
are  sprinkled  through  "  The  Student,"  and  the  "  Pilgrims  of 
the  Rhine,"  can  fail  to  see  in  them  the  creative  element  ?  Or, 
take  the  end  of  his  Harold,  the  death  of  Kienzi,  the  Hell  scene 
in  "  Night  and  Morning,"  and  the  closing  chapters  of  the 
"  Last  Days  of  Pompeii" — the  terms  "  oratory"  or  "  art"  will 
not  measure  these  •  they  are  instinct  with  power ;  their  words 


342  MISCELLANEOUS     SKETCHES. 


are  the  mighty  rushing  wings  of  a  supernal  tempest ;  and  to 
us,  at  least,  they  always,  even  at  the  twentieth  perusal,  give 
that  deep  delightful  shiver,  that  thrill  of  awful  joy,  which  pro- 
claims that  the  Spirit  of  Genius  is  passing  by,  and  is  making 
every  hair  on  our  flesh  start  up  to  do  him  obeisance. 

True  genius  is,  and  must  be,  original ;  so  that  the  terms 
"  original  genius"  are  a  poor  pleonasm.  Now,  we  think  that 
Bulwer  can  be  proved  to  have  originality;  and  originality  in 
any  department  of  the  fine  arts  is  genius.  His  thought,  his 
imagery,  his  style,  his  form  of  fiction,  are  all  intensely  his 
own ;  and,  therefore,  since  exerted  on  ideal  subjects,  all  are 
those  of  a  poet.  He  began  his  career  indeed,  as  most  writers 
do,  with  imitation.  He  found  certain  models  in  vogue  at  the 
time,  besides  some  which,  although  not  generally  popular, 
were  recommended  to  him  by  his  own  taste.  Hence,  in  his 
early  novels,  he  has  now  Godwin,  now  Scott,  and  now  the 
authors  of  what  were  then  called  the  fashionable  novels,  such 
as  Tremaine  and  Almacks,  in  his  eye.  But  he  soon  soared 
out  of  these  trammels,  and  exhibited  and  began  to  realise  his 
own  ideal  of  fiction,  the  peculiarity  of  which  perhaps  lies  in  the 
extreme  breadth  of  the  purpose  he  seeks  through  the  novel  and 
romance  to  fulfil.  He  has  tried  to  make  it  a  cosmopolitan 
thing — a  mirror — not  of  low  or  high  life  exclusively,  not  of 
the  everyday  or  the  ideal  alone,  not  of  the  past,  or  present,  or 
future,  merely ;  but  of  each  and  all ; — each  set  in  its  proper 
proportions,  and  all  shown  in  a  brilliant  light.  Ward,  and 
the  whole  of  that  school,  including  Disraeli  in  his  "  Vivian 
Grey"  and  "  Young  Duke,"  wrote  for  the  fashionable  classes. 
Godwin  wrote  for  political  and  moral  philosophers.  Dickens 
writes  for  Londoners,  Lever  for  Irishmen,  and  Thackeray  for 
the  microscopic  students  of  human  nature  everywhere.  Even 
Scott  neither  expressed  the  spirit  of  his  own  age,  nor  ever 
attempted  to  reproduce  the  classical  periods  ;  nor  has  he  dis- 
covered any  sympathy  with  the  mighty  metaphysical,  moral, 
and  religious  problems  with  which  all  thinkers  are  now  com- 
pelled to  grapple.  But  Bulwer  has  written  of  the  world,  and 
for  the  world,  in  the  broadest  sense ;  has  described  society, 
from  the  glittering  crown  of  its  head,  to  the  servile  sole  of  its 
foot ;  has  painted  all  kinds  of  life,  the  high,  the  middle,  the 
mean,  the  town  and  the  country,  the  convulsive  and  the  calm 


SIR    EDWARD    LYTTON    BULWER.  343 


— that  of  noblemen,  of  gamesters,  of  students,  of  highwaymen, 
of  murderers,  and  of  milliners  ;  has  mated  with  the  men  and 
manners  of  all  ages ;  has  reproduced,  with  startling  vraisein- 
blance,  the  ancient  Roman  times,  and  breathed  life  into  the 
gigantic  skeletons  of  Herculaueum  and  Pompeii ;  has  coped 
with  many  of  the  social  and  moral  questions,  as  well  as  faith- 
fully reflected  the  salient  features  of  our  own  wondrous 
mother-age  ;  and  has  with  bold  foot  invaded  those  regions  of 
speculation  which  blend  with  the  shadows  and  splendors  of 
the  life  to  come.  It  is  this  wide  and  catholic  character  which 
makes  his  writings  so  popular  on  the  Continent.  We  do  not, 
indeed,  say  that  he  has  completely  filled  up  the  broad  outline 
of  his  purpose ;  otherwise  he  had  been  the  greatest  novelist, 
perhaps  also  the  greatest  writer,  in  the  world.  But  he  has 
succeeded  so  far  as  to  induce  us  to  class  him  with  the  first 
authors  of  his  time.  He  has,  although  with  much  effort,  long 
training,  and  over  consciousness  both  of  the  toil  and  the  tri- 
Tiniph,  fairly  lifted  himself  above  this  "  ignorant  present  time," 
and  caught  on  his  wings  the  wide  calm  light  of  the  universe. 
Yet,  with  all  this  Goethe-like  breadth,  he  has  none  of  his  icy 
indifference ;  but  is  one  of  the  most  fervid  and  glowing,  as 
well  as  clear  and  cosmopolitan,  of  modern  writers. 

His  depth  has  often  been  denied,  nor  are  we  careful  to 
maintain  it.  There  are  in  some  of  our  authors  certain  quiet 
subtle  touches,  certain  profound  "  asides,"  certain  piercing 
single  thoughts,  which  proclaim  a  native  vein,  communicating 
directly  with  the  great  Heart  of  Being  ;  but  which  we  seldom 
if  ever,  find  in  Bulwer.  Although  he  be,  in  our  judgment,  a 
true  poet,  he  is  not  a  poet  of  the  very  highest  order.  But, 
perhaps,  his  exceeding  width  may  be  taken  as  in  some  meas- 
ure a  compensation  for  his  deficiency  in  depth.  Indeed,  some 
may  even  contend  that  if  there  be  the  same  amount  of  mind, 
it  is  of  little  consequence  whether  it  be  diffused  over  a  hun- 
dred intellectual  regions,  or  gathered  together  in  one  or  two 
profound  pits ;  that  as  depth  and  height  are  only  relative 
terms,  so  it  is  with  width  and  depth  ;  and  that  as  you  call  the 
sky  indifferently  either  lofty  or  profound,  so  a  very  wide  man 
is  deep  in  one  way  and  direction,  and  a  very  deep  man 
is  wide  in  another.  Be  this  as  it  may,  and  there  seems  a  pro- 
portion of  truth  as  well  as  of  fallacy  in  it,  we  contend  that 


344  MISCELLANEOUS    SKETCHES. 


the  writer  who,  like  Bulwer,  has  traversed  such  varied  regions, 
found  and  filled,  or  made  and  inspired,  so  many  characters,  im- 
bibed the  spirit,  talked  the  language,  and  reproduced  the  soul 
of  so  many  times,  must  be  a  great  uianr  whether  we  call  him 
or  not  a  GREAT  poet. 

One  element,  of  poetic  power  he  unquestionably  has  :  he  is 
impersonal ;  and,  on  the  whole,  very  little  of  an  egotist.  In 
"  Pelhani,"  indeed,  and  one  or  two  more  of  his  earlier  novels, 
while  he  was  yet  trifling  with  his  pen,  and  had  not  taken  any 
full  or  calm  aim  at  his  object,  he  seemed  often  to  be  glancing 
obliquely  at  his  own  image  in  the  mirror  of  self-conceit,  partly 
from  a  wish  to  re-assure  his  confidence  in  himself,  and  partly 
from  that  spirit  of  indolent  vacancy  which  often  falls  upon  a 
writer  who  is  only  half-hearted  in  his  task,  and  who  must  stir 
himself  to  renewed  action  by  the  spur  of  vanity.  But  latter- 
ly, he  has  risen  to  a  higher  region,  and  has  contrived,  while 
"  shooting  his  soul  "  into  a  thousand  personages,  fictitious  or 
real,  high  and  low,  wicked  and  good,  commonplace  and  roman- 
tic, to  forget  his  own  elegant  and  recherche  person — his  own 
fastidious  habits  and  tastes,  his  own  aristocratic  birth  and 
training,  and  to  remember  nothing  save  the  subject  or  idea 
which  has  entered,  filled,  and  transfigured  him.  For  example, 
Eugene  Aram,  though  a  monster,  is  not  a  mere  distorted  shad- 
ow of  the  author ;  Kienzi  is  not  Bulwer,  nor  is  Walter  Mon- 
treal, nor  is  Harold  the  last  of  the  Saxon  kings,  nor  is  War- 
wick the  King-maker.  These,  and  many  of  his  other  heroes, 
are  not  projections  of  the  writer's  image ;  but  are  either  bold 
individual  creations,  or  sternly  true  to  the  truth  of  history. 
Wordsworth  has  accused  even  Goethe  of  multiplying  his  own 
image  under  the  Protean  disguises  ;  and  of  being  an  egotist 
under  the  semblance  of  an  absolute  and  colorless  catholicity  ; 
and  on  this  account  most  justly  ranks  him  beneath  Shakspeare, 
who  can  become,  and  is  delighted  to  become,  everybody  ex- 
cept himself.  Bulwer,  on  the  contrary,  has  often  approached 
the  Shakspearian  method,  with  this  difference,  that  while  the 
novelist  passes  from  soul  to  soul  with  labor  dire  and  weary 
wo,  and  like  the  magician  in  the  story  of  Eadlallah,  has  to  di« 
in  agony  out  of  his  own  idiosyncrasy,  ere  he  is  born  in  joy 
and  exultation  into  that  of  others,  Shakspeare  melts  into  the 
being  of  all  other  men  as  softly  as  snow  into  a  river,  and  as 


SIR    EDWARD    LYTTON    SULWER.  345 


easily  as  one  dream  slides  within  and  becomes  a  part  and  por- 
tion in  another  or  another  series  of  dreams.  But  the  power 
in  the  novelist,  as  well  as  in  the  world-poet,  is  magical,  and  of 
itself  suffices  to  prove  him  a  writer  of  genius. 

His  dramatic  quality  is  in  fact  only  a  form  or  alias  of  his 
great  width  and  the  impersonal  habit  of  his  mind,  and  need 
not  be  dilated  on.  We  prefer  to  say  something  about  the 
power  he  has  of  rising  to  the  level  of  most  of  the  great  criti- 
cal points  in  the  stories  which  he  narrates.  It  is,  we  grant 
again,  often  by  effort,  by  a  sweat  like  that  of  Sisyphus,  that 
he  gets  his  big  stone  to  the  top  of  the  hill,  but  once  there,  it 
remains  a  triumphal  mark — a  far-seen  trophy  of  perseverance 
and  power.  We  grant  him,  in  his  general  style,  too  uniform- 
ly lively  and  brilliant.  He  is  like  those  writers  of  whose 
works  it  has  been  said,  "  the  whole  is  not  always  a  poem, 
while  every  sentence  is  poetry."  But,  first,  this  is  compli- 
mentary to  his  powers,  few  are  so  Australian  in  their  intellec- 
tual wealth ;  and,  were,  secondly,  the  charge  pressed,  Bulwer 
might  reply  as  a  student  is  once  said  to  have  done  : — ''  Your 
papers  are  all  equally  excellent,"  said  his  professor.  "  Then," 
replied  he,  "  I'll  take  care  that  in  my  next  some  parts  shall 
be  divine."  And  thus  sometimes  our  author  does  answer  in 
this  matter.  He  approaches  great  and  noble  topics,  each  one, 
like  the  brethren  of  Jerubbaal, "  resembling  the  son  of  a  king ;" 
he  girds  up  his  loins  to  mate  with  their  majesty ;  he  effects 
his  purpose  ;  and  what  Hazlitt  says  of  Milton  becomes  nearly 
true  of  him — "  he  is  always  striving  to  say  the  finest  things 
in  the  world,  and  he  does  say  them."  Effort,  when  united 
with  weakness,  and  ending  in  the  fate  of  the  frog  in  the  fable, 
is  a  pitiable  spectacle  ;  but  not  so  that  effort  which  is  prompt- 
ed by  manly  ambition,  which  is  sustained  by  genuine  and 
growing  strength,  and  which,  when  it  has  gained  the  success 
it  deserves,  appears  only  less  wonderful  and  less  sublime  than 
that  perfect  ease  of  nature  with  which  another  very  rare  class 
of  writers  work  their  still  mightier  works.  We  have  specified 
already  a  few  of  those  superb  passages  by  which  Bulwer  has 
made  out  his  claim  to  be  the  Milton,  while  Scott  is  the  Shak- 
speare,  of  novelists.  Even  Scott  has  seldom  surpassed  the 
death  of  Walter  Montreal,  or  the  picture  of  Vesuvius  drunk 
with  devouring  fire,  and  staggering  in  his  terrible  vomit. 


1  K* 


316  MISCELLANEOUS    SKETCUE8. 


What  is  genius  ?  is  a  question  to  which  many  answers  have 
teen  returned.  It  is,  says  De  Quincey,  "  mind  steeped  and 
saturated  in  the  genial  nature."  It  is,  say  others,  "  impas- 
sioned truth — thought  become  phosphorescent !"  It  is,  say 
others,  "  original  imagination  united  with  constructive  power." 
Without  discussing  these  definitions,  or  propounding  another, 
we  shall  state  one  element  which  is  essential  to  genius — Ge- 
nius is  Growth.  A  man  of  genius  is  always  a  man  of  limit- 
less growth,  with  a  soul  smitten  with  a  passion  for  growth,  and 
open  to  every  influence  which  promotes  it — one  who  grows  al- 
ways like  a  tree,  by  day  and  by  night,  in  calm  and  in  storm, 
through  opposition  and  through  applause,  in  difficulty  and  in 
despair — nay,  on  the  chill  death-bed  itself  his  soul  continues 
to  grow,  and  never  more  rapidly  than  there,  when  he  some- 
times says,  with  the  dying  Schiller,  "  many  things  are  becom- 
ing plain  and  clear  to  me."  It  Is  this  which,  perhaps,  proves 
best  his  greatness  and  his  relation  to  the  Infinite.  The  man 
of  talent  grows  to  a  certain  point,  and  there  stops ;  Genius 
knows  of  no  stops,  and  no  periods.  Even  the  wings  of  eagles, 
"  knitting,"  though  they  do,  the  mountain  with  the  sky  have 
their  severe  limit  fixed  in  the  far  ether ;  but  the  wings  of  an- 
gels have  none.  Emerson  speaks  of  nature  as  saying,  in  an- 
swer to  all  doubts  and  difficulties,  "  I  grow,  I  grow."  So 
there  hums  through  the  being  of  a  true  poet  the  low  everlast- 
ing melody  (truer  than  that  fabled  of  nature,  since  the  growth 
of  matter  is  only  temporary,  while  that  of  mind  is  eternal), 
"  I  also  grow,  and  shall  grow  for  ever."  This  growth  may 
sometimes  seem  to  retrograde,  just  as  there  are,  it  is  said,  cer- 
tain plants  which  grow  downwards,  but  downwards  in  search 
of  light ;  and  so  the  poet-soul,  when  it  stoops,  is  only  stoop- 
ing to  see,  and  when  it  turns,  is  only  turning  to  conquer. 
This  growth  may  sometimes  be  lost  sight  of  amid  the  dark- 
ness of  neglect,  or  covered  up  in  the  night  of  calamity,  or 
buried  in  foliage  produced  by  its  own  vigor ;  but,  even  as  fai- 
ries were  said  to  hear  the  flowers  growing,  there  are  ears  of 
fairy  fineness,  which  never  cease  to  be  aware  of  the  musical 
growth  of  men  of  the  true  and  sovereign  seed,  springing  up 
like  flowers  to  everlasting  life — arising  in  harmony  and  in  in- 
cense toward  the  heavens  of  God. 

Yes  !     For  this  growth  is  often,  if  not  always,  holy  and  ce- 


SIR    EDWARD    LYTTON    BULWER.  347 


lestial,  as  well  as  poetical  and  harmonious.  The  man  who  re- 
ally grows,  grows  in  wisdom,  love,  and  purity,  as  well  as  in 
genius  and  artistic  excellence.  It  is  as  a  whole  that  he  grows, 
it  is  in  God  and  toward  God  that  his  being  develops  itself. 
Not  a  few  gifted  persons,  indeed,  have  been  arrested  in  their 
career  by  early  death  or  by  dissipation,  and  appear  now  in 
stunted  or  blasted  forms  along  the  horizon  of  history.  But 
it  is  a  remarkable  fact,  that  most  men  of  genius  who  have 
been  permitted  to  outlive  the  dangerous  period  of  the  passions, 
and  to  attain  the  majestic  noon  of  middle  life,  or  the  still 
evening  of  old  age,  have  become  either  pious,  or  at  least  mor- 
al, good-tempered,  and  exemplary  men.  We  need  only  name 
Young,  Johnson,  Southey,  Coleridge,  Goethe,  even  Moore  in 
some  measure,  Shelley,  and,  so  far  as  we  can  ascertain,  Shak- 
speare  himself,  in  proof  of  this.  Time,  which  so  often  freezes 
and  contracts  men  of  more  prosaic  mould  into  a  shrivelled 
selfishness,  which  seems  chiller  than  death  itself,  in  the  case 
of  those  whose  minds  had  originally  burned  like  a  furnace 
seven  times  heated,  only  modifies  the  flame,  mingles  with  it 
the  salt  of  common  sense,  if  not  the  frankincense  of  piety, 
and  renders  it  more  kindly  in  its  outgoings  to  men,  if  it  does 
not  turn  it  upward  in  tongues  of  sacrifice  and  worship  to  the 
great  Fountain  of  Light  and  Father  of  Spirits.  And  when 
piety  mingles  with  the  maturity  of  genius  in  any  gifted  soul, 
it  becomes  a  sight  more  beautiful  than  any  that  this  fair  crea- 
tion can  show  us.  The  man,  then,  instead  of  standing  with 
the  mere  moralist,  and  the  mere  cold  speculator,  on  the  out- 
side of  things,  becomes  a  "partaker  of  the  divine  nature;" 
does  not  with  others  discern  with  lack-lustre  eye  merely  the  fiery 
fences  and  outward  semblances  of  the  Infinite,  but  sees,  and 
swims,  and  grows  IN  that  holy  and  boundless  element  itself. 

That  Bulwer  has  as  yet  attained  the  consummation  so  de- 
voutly to  be  wished,  which  our  last  sentence  describes,  we 
dare  not  affirm.  But  certainly  he  has  grown,  and  his  growth 
has  been  of  a  total  and  vital  sort.  His  first  two  or  three 
works  were  distinguished  chiefly  by  sentimentalism  and  clever- 
ness— a  sentimentalism  scarcely  amounting  to  genius,  and 
a  cleverness  hardly  attaining  to  wit.  In  "  Eugene  Aram"  he 
displayed  a  morbid  and  melodramatic  earnestness,  strongly 
characteristic  of  that  uneasy  and  thick-sighted  mood  of  mind, 


348  MISCELLANEOUS    SKETCHES 


•which  was  his  at  the  time,  and  which  he  was  increasing  by  the 
study  of  the  "  French  School  of  Desperation."  In  the  "  Last 
Days  of  Pompeii"  and  "  Ricnzi,"  you  saw  him  throwing  out 
his  mind  upon  subjects  which  carried  him  as  far  as  possible 
away  from  his  own  unsatisfied  reason,  torturing  doubts,  and 
agitating  passions.  Then,  in  "  Zanoni,"  the  strong  spirit  was 
heard  beating  against  the  bars  of  its  misery — and  its  life;  and 
asking  in  its  despair  questions  at  Destiny  and  the  world  un- 
seen. Then,  in  his  "  Ernest  Maltravers,"  his  "  Alice,"  and 
his  "  New  Timon,"  he  seemed  backing  out  of  spiritual  specu- 
lations into  a  certain  sneering  voluptuousness  worthy  of  Wie- 
land,  of  Byron,  or  of  Voltaire.  And  lastly,  in  his  "  Caxtons" 
and  "  My  Novel,"  there  seems  to  have  risen  on  his  path  what 
the  Germans  call  an  "  aftershine"  of  Christianity — a  mild,  be- 
lated, but  divine-seeming  day,  in  which  he  is  walking  on  still, 
and  which  he  doubtless  deeply  regrets  had  not  sooner  gleamed 
over  his  chequered  way.  His  allusions  to  the  experiences  of 
Robert  Hall,  and  to  the  benignant  influence  of  the  Christian 
faith  in  soothing  the  woes  of  humanity,  which  abound  in  the 
"  Caxtons"  especially,  are  exceedingly  beautiful,  and  have 
opened  to  Bulwer's  genius  the  doors  of  many  a  heart  that 
were  obstinately  shut  against  him  before.  The  moral  tone  of 
these  latter  novels,  too,  is  much  sweeter,  healthier,  and  purer 
than  that  of  his  earlier  tales.  Their  artistic  execution  is  not 
only  equal,  but  we  think  in  many  respects  superior.  If  there 
is  in  them  less  artifice,  there  is  more  real  art ;  and  if  they 
have  less  of  the  glare  and  bustle  of  rhetoric,  they  have  more 
of  the  soul  of  poetry.  If  they  dazzle  and  astonish  less,  they 
are  infinitely  more  pleasing,  and  if  they  abound  not  so  much 
in  rapid  adventures,  thrilling  situations,  and  romantic  interest, 
they  idealise  common  life,  and  show  the  element  of  poetic 
interest  as  well  as  the  soul  of  goodness  which  are  found 
amongst  the  middle  classes  of  society.  One  character  in  his 
last  novel  is  perhaps  the  finest  of  all  his  creations — we  mean, 
of  course,  Burley.  In  the  very  daring  implied  in  taking  up 
the  name  of  the  most  original  character  Scott  ever  drew,  old 
John  Balfour,  the  stern  homicide  of  Magus  Muir,  and  connect- 
ing it  with  the  most  novel  and  striking  character  Bulwer  ever 
depicted,  there  was  genius.  Who  would  venture  even  to  call 
the  hero  of  a  new  play  Macbeth,  or  Lear,  or  Hamlet  ?  Unless 


SIR    EDWARD    LYTTON    BULWER.  349 


the  play  were  of  transcendent  merit,  the  very  name  so  pre- 
sumptuously assumed  would  condem  it  as  assuredly  as  John 
Gait's  "  Lady  Macbeth"  was  condemned.  But,  in  spite  of 
this  preliminary  prejudice,  Bulwer's  Burley  is  not  only  as  en- 
tirely different  from  Scott's,  as  a  rough  literary  man  of  the 
nineteeth  century  must  be  from  a  rough  soldier  of  the  seven- 
teenth ;  but  as  a  picture  of  a  strange,  wild,  half-mad  man  of 
genius,  full,  nevertheless,  of  the  milk  of  human  kindness,  and 
of  the  warmest  and  noblest  feelings,  it  is  almost  perfect,  and 
of  itself  sufficient  to  immortalise  the  author. 

In  contemplating  Bulwer's  career,  we  are  impressed,  in  fine, 
with  one  or  two  reflections  of  a  somewhat  interesting  and  im- 
portant kind.  It  teaches  us  the  might  and  worth  which  lie  in 
determined  struggle  and  invincible  perseverance.  We  do  not, 
by  any  means,  dislike  those  splendid  coup  de  mains  of  literary 
triumph  we  find  in  such  cases  as  Byron,  Macaulay,  Charles 
Dickens,  and  Alexander  Smith,  all  of  whom  "  arose  one  morn- 
ing and  found  themselves  famous."  Nay,  we  glory  in  them, 
as  proofs  of  the  power  of  the  human  mind,  and  as  auguries  of 
the  more  illustrious  successes  reserved  for  yet  brighter  and 
purer  spirits  in  the  future.  They  show  what  man  can  do,  and 
hint  what  man  yet  may  do.  But  we  love  still  better  to  see  a 
strong  spirit  slowly  urging  his  way  against  opposition,  often 
driven  back  but  never  discouraged,  often  perplexed  but  never 
in  despair,  often  cast  down  but  never  destroyed,  often  falling 
but  never  fallen,  and  at  last  gaining  a  victory  as  undeniable  as 
that  of  a  jubilant  summer  sun.  Such  was  Milton,  such  John- 
son, such  Burke,  such  Wordsworth,  such  Disraeli,  and  such 
Bulwer.  The  success  of  these  men  looks  less  like  the  result 
of  accident,  or  of  popular  caprice,  or  of  magic,  and  more  like 
the  just  and  lawful,  although  late,  reward  of  that  high  merit 
which  unites  moral  energy  with  intellectual  prowess,  and  be- 
comes thus  far  more  useful  as  an  example  and  a  stimulus  to 
others.  Not  one  in  a  hundred  millions  can  expect  such  a 
tropical  sunrise  of  success  as  befell  Byron  ;  but  any  one  who 
unites  a  considerable  degree  of  capacity  with  indomitable  de- 
termination, may  become,  if  not  a  Bulwer,  yet  in  his  own 
department  an  eminent  and  influential  man. 

We  are  still  more  struck  with  this  perseverance,  when  we 
remember  Bulwer's  position  in  society.  Possessed  of  rank 


350  MISCELLANEOUS    SKETCHES. 


and  ample  fortune,  he  has  labored  as  hard  as  any  bookseller's 
hack  in  the  empire  ;  proving  thus  that  his  love  for  literature 
was  as  sincere  as  his  ideal  of  it  was  high,  and  redeeming  it 
from  a  certain  shade  of  contempt  which  has  of  late,  justly  or 
unjustly,  rested  upon  it.  It  cannot  be  denied  that  various 
causes,  such  as  the  poverty  of  many  of  our  authors,  and  the 
mean  shifts  to  which  it  has  often  reduced  them  ;  the  dissipa- 
tion and  blackguardism  of  a  few  others  ;  the  envious  spirit  and 
quarrelsome  disposition  of  a  third  class ;  the  vast  amount  of 
mediocre  writing  which  now  pours  from  the  press  ;  the  num- 
ber of  pretenders  whom  the  hot  and  sudden  sunlight  of  ad- 
vancing knowledge  has  prematurely  quickened  into  reptile  life  ; 
not  to  speak  of  the  engrossment  of  the  public  mind  with  com- 
mercial speculation  and  politics,  and  the  contemptuous  indif- 
ference of  many  of  our  aristocracy  and  many  of  our  clergy  to 
literary  things  and  literary  men,  have  all  combined  rather  to 
lower  Polite  Letters  in  the  eyes  of  the  public.  And  nothing, 
on  the  other  hand,  can  tend,  or  has  tended  more  to  reinstate 
it  in  its  proper  place  of  estimation  than  the  fact,  that  not  a 
few,  distinguished  and  successful  in  other  professions,  in  arts 
or  in  arms,  at  the  bar  or  in  the  pulpit,  have  gloried  in  casting 
in  their  lot  with  this  despised  profession — have  submitted  to 
its  drudgeries,  borne  its  burdens,  and  aimed  at  and  gained  its 
laurels.  Eminent  lawyers  have  become  literateurs.  Eminent 
officers  have  become  writers  of  travels.  Eminent  clergymen 
have  become  editors  of  periodicals  and  authors  of  scientific 
treatises.  Eminent  physicians,  men  of  fashion,  barristers, 
lords  of  session,  and  even  peers  of  the  realm,  have  all  aspired 
to  the  honor  connected  with  the  name  of  Poet.  And  Bulwer 
has  brought  this  to  a  bright  climax,  by  blending  the  lustre  of 
rank  and  riches  with  the  distinctions  of  the  highest  literary 
celebrity.  We  fear  that  literature,  as  a  profession,  will  never 
thrive  to  any  great  extent  in  this  country.  The  gains  of  au- 
thors are  becoming  smaller  and  smaller  in  each  section  of  the 
century ;  and  the  fact  that  all  our  literature  threatens  soon  to 
be  "  afloat  in  the  great  gulf-stream  of  cheapness,"  will  probably, 
we  at  least  think,  reduce  them  further  still.  In  this  case,  we 
must  depend  more  than  ever  upon  the  supplies  from  non-pro- 
fessional men,  non-commissioned  officers,  shall  we  call  them  ? 
in  the  great  literary  army.  Nor  need  we  fear  that  this  will  at 


SIR    EDWARD    LYTTON    BULWER.  351 


all  deteriorate  the  value  of  literary  productions.  It  will  have, 
we  think,  precisely  the  opposite  effect.  Professional  litera- 
teurs  are  often  forced  by  necessity  to  put  to  press  productions 
totally  unworthy  of  their  talents,  and  in  general  to  dilute  and 
weaken  by  diffusion  their  powers.  It  is  obvious  that  those 
who  write  only  when  leisure  permits,  and  the  spur  of  impulse 
excites,  are  less  liable  to  this  temptation.  And  looking  both 
to  the  past  and  present,  we  find  that  the  greatest  and  best,  on 
the  whole,  of  our  writers  have  not  been  authors  by  profession. 
Shakspeare's  profession  was  not  authorship,  but  the  stage. 
Milton  was  a  schoolmaster  and  a  secretary.  Addison,  too,  was 
a  secretary  of  state.  Pope  was  a  man  of  private  fortune. 
Fielding  was  a  justice.  Richardson  kept  a  shop — so  did  God- 
win. Cowper  lived  on  his  patrimony,  and  on  gifts  from  his 
relatives.  Wordsworth  was  a  starnpmaster.  Croly  is  a  rec- 
tor. John  Wilson  was  a  professor.  Shelley  was  a  gentleman 
of  fortune,  and  heir  to  a  baronetcy.  Byron  was  a  peer.  Car- 
lyle  has  an  estate.  Browning  is  a  man  of  fortune  and  family. 
Of  Jeffrey,  Macaulay,  Sidney  Smith,  Hall,  and  Foster,  we  need 
not  speak.  And  our  present  hero  is  the  proprietor  of  Kneb- 
worth,  as  well  as  a  scholar,  orator,  wit,  novelist,  and  poet. 

We  close  this  paper  by  expressing  our  very  hearty  congratu- 
lations to  Sir  Edward  Lytton  Bulwer  on  his  recent  reception 
and  appearances  in  Edinburgh ;  our  warm  gratitude  for  the 
hours  of  pleasure  and  profit  his  numerous  works  have  given 
us ;  and  an  ardent  wish  that  his  future  life  may  be  calm  and 
bright ;  and  that  the  current  of  thought  and  feeling  in  his 
future  works  may  take,  still  more  decidedly  than  of  late,  a 
practical  and  a  Christian  course,  and  catch  on  its  last  waves  the 
hues  of  heaven's  light,  blended  with  the  tints  of  fancy  and  of 
poetry  ! 


352  MISCELLANEOUS    SKETCHES. 


NO.   VII.-BENJAMIN  DISRAELI.* 

THERE  are  two  races,  the  contrast  between  whose  former 
and  present  position  is  so  deep  and  marked,  as  to  produce  the 
most  melancholy  reflections.  We  refer,  of  course,  to  the 
Greeks  and  the  Jews.  The  ancient  Greek  was  the  noblest  of 
nature's  children  ;  he  was  not  so  much  a  man  as  he  was  a  petty 
god — or,  rather,  some  statue  that  had  walked  down  from  its 
pedestal.  Mrs.  Jameson  says  of  the  Venus  de  Medici,  that 
she  looks  as  if  she  would  come  down  if  she  could,  while  the 
Hercules  Farnese  looks  as  if  he  could  come  down  if  he  would. 
Were  he  thus  to  descend,  he  were  the  alter  idem  of  the  nobler 
of  the  ancient  Greeks,  in  whom  beauty  and  grandeur  met  to- 
gether— elegance  and  energy  embraced  each  other — and  in 
whom,  if  symmetry  seemed  sometimes  to  disguise  strength, 
strength  was  ever  present,  albeit  half-seen,  to  support  the  sym- 
metry. Their  very  children  were  taught  to  contend  for  prizes 
for  beauty,  and  had  statues  erected  to  them  if  they  succeeded. 
Their  style  of  dress  was  itself  a  dream  of  beauty.  Their  lan- 
guage was  as  picturesque  as  it  was  expressive  and  rich.  They 
inhabited  a  country  which  to  all  the  romantic  variety  of  Scot- 
tish landscape  added  the  richness  and  warmth  of  an  oriental 
clime  ;  now  towering  up  into  the  snowy  grandeur  of  Olympus, 
and  now  softening  into  the  unparalleled  luxuriance  of  the  Vale 
of  Tempe;  here  rugged  as  the  defile  of  Thermopylse,  and  there 
panoramic  as  the  Bay  of  Athens.  The  creations  of  their 
genius  were  just  the  projected  images  of  their  own  beautiful 
selves.  The  heroes  of  their  song  were  themselves,  in  shapes 
of  sublime  trial  and  ideal  contest.  Their  gods  were  them- 
selves— walking  on  the  mountain-tops  of  imagination,  and 
covered  with  celestial  glory  as  with  snow.  Their  hell  was  the 
contorted  reflections  of  their  own  Macedonian  defiles  or  Alba- 
nian deserts  ;  and  their  heaven  was  the  colored  image  of  their 
own  Cretan  vales.  Towering  over  this  magnificent  people — 
the  heroes  of  a  hero-land,  the  Mont  Blancs  of  a  mountain  re- 
gion— were  the  grand  men  of  Greece,  men  whose  names  sound 

*  The  Right  Hon.  Benjamin  Disraeli,  M.  P. :  a  Literary  and  Political 
Biography,  addressed  to  the  New  Generation. — Tancred.  By  B.  DISRAELI. 


BENJAMIN    DISRAELI.  353 


yet  like  peals  of  thunder — Pericles,  Epaminondas  Dtmos- 
thenes,  Socrates,  Aristotle,  Alexander,  Plato,  Homer — in 
whom  the  beauty  of  the  land  became  all  but  divine,  its  strength 
Herculean,  and  its  sublimity  that  of  an  Alp  in  the  evening 
sun,  or  a  hero  of  celestial  race  when  his  set  time  is  come,  and 
when  he  feels  himself  growing  into  a  god.  And  then  its  statu- 
ary, so  cool,  and  clear,  and  bright ;  and  its  oratory  and  logic, 
naked,  nervous,  and  gigantic  as  a  Thracian  gladiator ;  and  its 
drama,  at  once  formal  and  fiery,  passionate  as  the  bosoms  and 
one  as  the  wall  of  Pandemonium ;  and  its  philosophy,  seeking 
to  draw  down  the  secrets  of  the  gods  to  men,  even  as  Frank- 
lin afterwards  led  down  the  lightning  from  its  cavern  like  a 
lion  in  a  leash,  and  yoked  it  to  the  majestic  car  of  human  pro- 
gress ;  and  its  poetry,  either  in  its  narratives  and  pictures, 
clear  and  literal  as  a  mirror  in  the  state-chamber  of  kings — 
or,  in  its  choruses  and  dramatic  raptures,  deep  and  dithyrarn- 
bic  as  that  melancholy  music  which  seeks,  it  is  said,  not 
altogether  in  vain,  to  soothe  the  agonies  of  the  lost,  and 

"  To  mitigate  and  suage, 

With  solemn  touches,  troubled  thoughts,  and  chase 
Anguish,  and  doubt,  and  fear,  and  sorrow,  and  pain, 
From  mortal  or  immortal  minds !" 

Such  was  Greece,  such  were  the  Grecians.  What  is  it,  and 
what  are  they,  now  ?  Even  in  their  late  won  and  blocd-ce- 
mented  freedom,  what  are  they  ?  Alas  !  we  must  still  say, 

"'Tis  Greece,  but  living  Greece  no  more;" 

and  throw  the  shroud  of  silence  over  the  corpse  of  the  beautiful ! 
Still  more  striking,  however,  is  the  contrast  between  the 
ancient  and  the  modern  Jews.  As  the  Greeks  were  the  favor- 
ite people  of  nature,  the  Jews  were  the  chosen  people  of  God. 
As  the  Greeks  seemed  their  own  deities  come  down  to  men, 
the  Jews  were  the  representatives  of  that  inscrutable  ONE  who 
filleth  immensity,  and  the  praises  thereof.  In  Him  they 
lived,  and  moved,  and  had  their  being.  As  a  nation,  they 
rose  and  sunk  on  God  as  on  a  wave — now  heaven-high,  and 
now  deep  as  the  centre.  Their  progress  seemed  the  progress 
of  God's  plan  in  the  world ;  their  decline  the  temporary  re- 
treat of  the  awful  billow.  In  their  prosperity  they  were  like 
angels  basking  in  the  face  of  their  Father — under  their  beat- 


354  MISCELLANEOUS    SKETCHES. 


ings  and  burdens  they  still  continued,  like  Balaam's  ass,  to 
see  God  where  none  else  beheld  him.  Along  with  the  meteors 
which  marked  their  advance  in  the  wilderness — the  pillars  of 
fire  and  of  cloud — there  hung  a  mystic  haze  of  miraculous 
destiny  over  all  their  motions.  God  cut  a  passage  for  them 
through  the  water  of  the  Red  Sea,  and  through  the  fire  of  that 
great  and  terrible  wilderness.  He  translated  them  while  yet 
alive  to  himself,  and  lo  !  the  nation  became  as  insulated  as  it 
was  powerful ;  and  was  verily  "  a  royal  nation  and  a  peculiar 
people."  He  fed  them  with  meat  from  heaven,  and  gave  them 
drink  from  the  depths  which  slumber  under  the  rocks  of 
the  desert.  When  he  slew  them,  it  was  by  no  hand  but 
his  own — Abraham  slaying,  as  it  were,  his  son ;  and  heaps 
on  heaps  their  "  carcasses  fell  in  the  wilderness."  As  he  had 
lighted  up  the  wilderness  with  strange  splendors  during  their 
passage,  and  made  Sinai  speak  to  them  in  thunder,  so,  wheji 
he  brought  them  into  the  Promised  Land,  it  began  to  flow  with 
milk  and  honey,  to  gleam  with  supernatural  glory,  and  to  ring 
with  divine  voices.  In  the  midst  of  that  land  there  arose,  like 
a  high  palace,  the  Temple,  with  its  marble  and  gold,  its  pro- 
found symbols,  and  mute  and  mighty  prophecies ;  around  were 
seen  the  stately  steps  of  kings,  walking  like  gods  in  the  earth, 
because  bearing  in  their  hands  the  sceptres  which  God  had 
lent,  and  was  to  resume;  up  steamed  the  smoke  of  incense, 
which,  though  ascending  in  volumes,  hiding  the  sun,  hid  not 
the  white  garments  and  the  oracular  gems  of  the  ministering 
priests ;  on  every  side  were  heard  the  cries  of  prophets  speak- 
ing from  the  immediate  inspiration  of  the  Most  High,  and 
whose  eyes  shone  with  the  lustre  of  very  visions  of  God  ;  and 
behold  !  to  it  at  length  arrived  God's  only  begotten  Son,  meek 
and  lowly,  a  Hebrew  of  the  Hebrews,  riding  upon  an  as,  and 
yet  welcomed  by  hosannas,  which  first  echoed  by  allJerusalem, 
at  last  were  taken  up  by  distant  lands,  and  have  swelled  into  a 
diapason  as  wide  as  the  world.  A  nation  so  peculiar  and  so 
sacred  were  the  Jews,  that,  even  when  bowed,  broken,  and  dis- 
persed at  last,  it  was  under  a  burden  no  less  weighty  than  the 
blood  of  the  Eternal  Son  of  God.  His  blood,  invoked  by,  fell  on 
them  like  a  fiery  rain ;  and,  staggering  and  shrieking  under  it, 
they  have  wandered  ever  since  among  the  nations. 

Such  were  they ;  but  how  great  the  change !     Hear  the 


BENJAMIN    bISRAELI.  355 


•words  of  that  master  in  our  literary  Israel,  Scott,  on  this  sub- 
ject:— "  '  Thou  hast  spoken  the  Jew,'  said  Rebecca  to  Bois- 
Guilbert,  '  as  the  persecution  of  such  as  thou  art  has  made 
him.  Heaven  in  ire  has  driven  him  from  his  country,  but 
industry  has  opened  up  to  him  the  only  road  to  power  and  to 
influence,  which  oppression  has  left  unbarred.  Eead  the  his- 
tory of  the  ancient  people  of  God,  and  tell  me  if  those  by 
whom  Jehovah  wrought  such  marvels  among  the  nations  were 
then  a  people  of  misers  and  usurers  !  And  know,  proud  knight, 
we  number  names  amongst  us  to  which  your  boasted  northern 
nobility  is  as  the  gourd  compared  to  the  cedar — names  that 
ascend  far  back  to  those  high  times  when  the  Divine  Presence 
shook  the  mercy-seat  between  the  cherubim,  and  which  derive 
their  splendor  from  no  earthly  prince,  but  from  the  awful  voice 
which  bade  their  fathers  be  nearest  of  the  congregation  to  the 
Vision.  Such  were  the  princes  of  the  House  of  Jacob.'  Re- 
becca's color  rose  as  she  boasted  the  ancient  glories  of  her 
race ;  but  faded,  as  she  added  with  a  sigh,  '  Such  WERE  the 
princes  of  Judah — now  such  no  more.  They  are  trampled 
down  like  the  shorn  grass,  and  mixed  with  the  mire  of  the 
ways.'  ' 

The  spectacle  of  the  decay  of  the  Greeks  is  not  nearly  so 
melancholy  as  that  of  the  Jews.  The  Greeks  resemble  de- 
throned kings  ;  the  Jews  banished  angels.  The  one  nation  has 
fallen  from  an  earthly  height ;  the  other,  like  Lucifer,  from 
heaven.  The  Greeks  have  always  met  with  sympathy  ;  there 
is,  even  still,  a  strong  and  fierce  prejudice  burning  against  the 
Jews.  The  Greeks  have  made  very  considerable  efforts  to  re- 
cover from  their  degradation ;  the  Jews,  as  a  class,  are  still 
writhing  in  the  dust  of  mean  callings,  and  of  the  still  lower 
spirit  of  contempt  with  which  these  are  regarded,  No  one, 
when  a  Greek  passes,  cries  out  in  scorn,  "  There's  a  Greek;" 
but  many,  when  they  see  the  dark  eye  and  bent  figure  of  a  son 
of  Abraham  passing  by,  still  sneer  out  the  bitter  taunt, 
"  There's  a  Jew."  Still,  too  true  is  the  memorable  contrast 
of  Coleridge,  as  expressing  the  two  uttermost  poles  of  national 
condition — between  the  cry  of  Isaiah,  "  Hear,  oh  heavens,  and 
give  ear,  oh  earth !"  and  that  of  "  Old  Clo' "  from  a  street- 
broker. 

We  fancy  that  we  perceive  the  continued  prevalence  of  this 


356  MISCELLANEOUS    SKETCHES. 


ungenerous  feeling  in  the  recent  attacks  of  a  large  portion  if 
the  press  upon  Benjamin  Disraeli ;  and  we  shall  try,  in  this 
paper,  to  do  all  we  can  to  counteract  it.  We  are  no  Jews  nor 
Greeks  either ;  no  admirers  of  Disraeli's  political  character,  or 
of  all  his  literary  works ;  but  we  love  fair  play ;  we  know 
Disraeli  to  be  a  man  of  high  genius,  and  altogether  indepen- 
dent of  our  praise ;  but  we  know  also,  how  easy  it  is  for  base 
underlings,  and  an  irresponsible  gang  of  minor  and  malignant 
critics,  to  injure  any  reputation,  and  derogate  from  any  name, 
and  wish  to  devote  a  paper  to  place  this  brilliant  man's  lite- 
rary merits  in  a  proper  point  of  view. 

Before  giving  our  own  opinion  of  Disraeli's  literary  and 
intellectual  qualities,  we  have  a  few  remarks  to  make  on  that 
biography  of  him  which  now  lies  before  us.  It  is  an  able 
production,  but  it  is  neutralised  in  a  great  measure  by  its  spi- 
rit of  fierce,  slow,  partisan,  bloodhound  hatred.  Every  line 
of  it  is  written  in  revenge  as  in  red  ink.  We  know  nothing 
positively  of  the  author ;  but  one  might  imagine  that  it  was 
the  work  of  the  dismissed  secretary,  or  the  disgraced  valet 
of  the  brilliant  Hebrew.  Since  Bourrienne's  Life  of  Napo- 
leon Bonaparte,  we  remember  no  book  which  sets  itself  with 
such  deliberate  determination,  with  such  unflagging  animosity, 
with  such  remorseless  malignity  of  purpose,  to  damage  a  pub- 
lic character.  Even  its  concessions  are  meant  to  be  fatal,  and 
its  praise  is  always  the  prelude  to  a  sentence  of  perdition. 
Emerson  speaks  of  some  whose  "  blame  is  a  kind  of  praising" 
— this  author's  praise  is  a  kind  of  blaming.  To  renew  a  former 
figure,  you  hear  the  voice  the  sleuth-hound  in  every  paragraph. 
Now  it  is  a  deep-mouthed,  incessant  bay;  now  it  is  the  growl 
of  disappointment  at  finding  the  scent  cold ;  and  now  it  is  the 
cry  of  fresh  delight  at  coming  upon  it  again.  Were  there  but 
two  beings  in  the  earth,  and  these  two  enemies,  they  would 
but  typify  Benjamin  Disraeli  and  his  unknown  biographer. 
The  latter,  at  least,  writes  as  if  he  were  created  for  the  purpose 
of  trying  to  degrade  and  dishonor  the  name  of  the  former. 

Now,  without  judging  as  to  the  motives,  we  beg  leave  to  de- 
mur as  to  the  wisdom  of  the  course  here  pursued.  If  Disraeli 
be  such  a  tenth-rate  man  as  this  biography  would  imply, 
whence  this  extreme  eagerness  to  vilify  and  blacken  him  ? 
If  he  be  little  else  than  a  fool,  why  be  at  such  pains  to  prove 


BENJAMIN    DISRAELI.  357 


him  a  villain?  The  very  effort  and  elaboration  exerted  in 
demonstrating  the  latter  of  these  propositions,  show  that  the 
former  is  felt  to  be  a  falsehood.  The  two  parts  of  the  biogra- 
phy— the  "  literary"  and  the  "  political" — in  fact,  clash 
against  and  extinguish  each  other. 

We  promised  in  the  introduction  not  to  enter  on  Disraeli's 
political  career.  We  have  not,  in  fact,  studied  it  closely,  ex- 
cept in  the  pages  of  this  biography ;  but  these,  while  profess- 
ing to  teach  the  contrary,  have  convinced  us  that,  more  than 
nine-tenths  of  our  statesmen,  Disraeli  has  been  guided  by  a 
thought — a  great,  glittering,  one  "  Star"  suspended  in  the  sky 
of  his  soul — which,  be  it  from  heaven  or  hell,  he  has  faithfully 
followed,  so  faithfully,  that  its  revolutions  and  changes  have 
been  confounded  with  Ms  ! 

But  we  pass  to  his  literary  character ;  and  here  his  biogra- 
pher has  done  him  very  gross  injustice.  Whoever  this  writer 
may  be,  he  is  but  a  sorry  judge  of  literature.  The  only  indi- 
cation of  good  taste  he  gives  is  his  unbounded  admiration  of 
the  wisdom  and  genius  of  Edmund  Burke.  While  coinciding 
to  the  depths  of  our  heart  with  this,  we  venture,  first,  to  ask 
if  Burke  was,  outwardly,  the  most  consistent  of  authors  or 
statesmen ;  and,  secondly,  would  recommend  to  this  author 
Burke's  style,  as  a  better  model,  both  for  political  and  literary 
discussion,  than  those  he  seems  to  have  copied.  He  has  not, 
indeed,  imitated  the  insufferable  verbiage,  misty  bewilderment, 
and  stilted  platitudes  which  cripple  the  writings  of  the  power- 
ful and  highly  cultured  William  Gladstone,  of  whom  he  is 
such  an  admirer ;  but  he  has  evidently  read  too  long  and  too 
lovingly  the  lucubrations  of  the  "  Morning  Chronicle,"  and 
similar  scribes  of  the  London  press,  and  should,  like  other 
half-trained  boys  (young  or  old),  be  remanded  to  his  studies. 
We  had  not,  we  must  say,  read  "  Alroy,"  till  our  attention 
was  pointed  to  it  by  the  abuse  of  this  writer.  We  thank  him, 
with  all  our  soul,  for  that  emasculated  and  envious  attack  ! 
It  has  introduced  us  to  one  of  the  finest  of  modern  prose- 
poems.  There  are,  indeed,  two  objections  which  may  be 
started  to  it: — one,  its  form,  which  is  too  Frenchified,  remind- 
ing you,  in  its  short  chapters,  and  abrupt  transitions,  and 
glancing  hints  of  thought,  of  "  Candide ;"  and  the  second 
(one  which  his  biographer  presses  against  him  with  all  his 


358  MISCELLANEOUS    SKETCHES. 


might),  the  peculiar  rhythm  of  the  more  ambitious  passages> 
which  makes  parts  of  it  seem  hybrids  between  poetry  and  prose- 
But,  after  deducting  these  faults,  the  tale  is  one  of  uncom- 
mon interest.  Some  of  the  situations  are  thrilling  to  sub* 
limity,  and  the  language  and  imagery  are  intensely  oriental, 
and  in  general  as  felicitous  as  they  are  bold.  Yet  this  biogra- 
pher denies  that  "  Alroy"  is  a  poem,  that  its  language  is  poet- 
ical ;  and  even  wonders  that  its  author  has  thought  it  worth 
while  to  republish  it !  In  disproof  of  these  assertions,  we  sim- 
ply refer  our  readers  to  the  picture  of  Alroy's  flight  into  the 
wilderness ;  to  the  description  of  the  simoon ;  to  the  visit  of 
Alroy  to  the  sepulchres  of  the  kings ;  to  his  immurement  in 
the  dungeon;  to  the  escape  of  Abidau;  and  to  the  closing 
scene.  These  passages  we  consider  equal — io  interest,  in  terse 
description,  in  rapid  power,  and  in  frequent  grandeur — to  any- 
thing iu  the  whole  compass  of  fictitious  literature.  The  book 
altogether  ranks  very  near  "  Caliph  Vathek,"  and  is  incompar- 
ably superior  to  all  other  modern  imitations  of  the  oriental 
manner,  unless  we  except  "  Salathiel,"  that  eloquent  and  pow- 
erful product  of  Dr.  Croly's  genius.  The  biographer  before 
us — whom  again  we  proclaim,  although  a  sagacious  and  clever 
man,  to  be  no  judge  of  poetry  or  literary  merit — tears  some 
of  the  more  extravagant  passages  from  the  context,  and  makes 
them  look  ludicrous  enough.  This  is  not  fair.  In  proof  of 
this,  we  can  say  that  one  or  two  of  them,  which  seemed  absurd 
as  transferred  to  his  cold  and  critical  page,  and  contrasted 
with  his  occidental  and  icy  spirit,  when  read  by  the  glowing 
eastern  day  shed  through  Disraeli's  genius  over  the  whole  of 
this  prose  "  Thalaba,"  assumed  to  us  a  very  different  aspect  j 
and  if  we  still  call  them  "  barbaric  pearl,"  we  felt  that,  never- 
theless, pearl  they  were.  Few  things  can  be  more  beautiful, 
in  its  own  warm,  voluptuous,  Song-of-Solomon  style,  than  the 
following  (which  the  biographer,  had  he  quoted,  would  have 
pronounced  ridiculous) : — 

"  It  is  the  tender  twilight  hour,  when  maidens  in  their  lonely 
bower,  sigh  softer  than  the  eve.  The  languid  rose  her  head 
upraises,  and  listens  to  the  nightingale,  while  his  wild  and 
thrilling  praises  from  his  trembling  bosom  gush ;  the  languid 
rose  her  head  upraises,  and  listens  with  a  blush.  In  the  clear 
and  rosy  air,  sparkling  with  a  single  star,  the  sharp  and  spiry 


BENJAMIN    DISRAELI.  359 


cypress-tree  rises  like  a  gloomy  thought,  amid  the  flow  of 
revelry. 

"  A  singing  bird,  a  single  star,  a  solemn  tree,  an  odorous 
flower,  are  dangerous  in  the  tender  hour,  when  maidens,  in 
their  twilight  bower,  sigh  softer  than  the  eve  !  The  daughter 
of  the  caliph  comes  forth  to  breathe  the  air  :  her  lute  her  only 
company.  She  sits  down  by  a  fountain's  side,  and  gazes  on 
the  waterfall.  Her  cheek  reclines  upon  her  arm,  like  fruit 
upon  a  graceful  bough.  Very  pensive  is  the  face  of  that 
bright  and  beauteous  lady.  She  starts  :  a  warm  voluptuous 
lip  presses  her  soft  aud  idle  hand.  It  is  her  own  gazelle. 
With  his  large  aud  lustrous  eyes,  more  eloquent  than  many  a 
tongue,  the  fond  attendant  asks  the  cause  of  all  her  thought- 
fulness." 

This  we  do  not  call  perfect  writing;  it  does  not  answer  to 
our  highest  standard  of  even  the  prosaico-poetic  style ;  but, 
separated  from  its  context  as  it  is,  will  any  one  say  that  it  is 
absurd  ?  Will  any  man  connected  with  literature,  unless  he 
be  a  hired  hack-accuser,  pretend  that  it  is  not  poetry  ? 

Still  finer  and  loftier  things  than  what  we  have  quoted 
abound  in  this  poem ;  and  "  Iskander,"  which  is  bound  up 
along  with  it,  is  worthy  of  the  fellowship ;  for,  if  less  poetical 
and  brilliant,  it  is  equally  interesting,  and  much  more  nervous 
and  simple  in  style.  In  one  thing  Disraeli  excels  all  novelists 
— we  mean  rapidity  of  narration.  With  what  breathless  speed 
does  he  hurry  his  reader  along !  Iskander  at  the  bridge  re- 
minds you  of  Macaulay's  Horatius  in  the  first  of  his  "  Lays 
of  Ancient  Rome  :"  the  story  is  somewhat  similar,  and  is  told 
with  the  same  animation,  and  the  same  eager  rush  of  power. 

We  do  not  think  it  necessary  to  continue  the  examination 
of  his  works  individually.  'We  may  say,  however,  that  "  Tan- 
cred"  contains  much  of  the  same  poetic  matter  with  "  Alroy ;" 
but  is  chastened  down  with  severer  taste,  and  displays  a  vastly 
more  matured  intellect.  His  pictures  of  Grethsemane — of 
Bethany — of  Sinai,  are  never  to  be  forgotten.  They  serve 
better  than  a  thousand  books  of  travels  to  bring  before  our 
view  that  land  where  God  did  desire  to  dwell ;  and  every  spot 
in  which,  from  Lebanon  to  the  Dead  Sea — from  Bashan  to 
Carmel  —  from  the  borders  of  Tyre  to  Hebron — from  the 
Lake  of  Galilee  to  the  Brook  Kishon,  is  surrounded  with  the 


360  MISCELLANEOUS    SKETCHES. 


halo  of  profound  and  unearthly  interest.  In  one  point  we  notice 
an  improvement  on  "  Alroy."  There  is  in  "  Tancred  "  a  dis- 
tinct recognition  of  the  mission  of  Jesus  Christ ;  and  the  allu- 
sions to  him  and  his  history  are  full  of  fervid  admiration  and 
solemn  reverence.  Disraeli  has  at  last  learned  that  it  is  the 
sublimest  distinction  of  his  race  that  from  it  sprang  One 
whose  name  has  been  a  Crown  to  the  earth  more  magnificent 
than  though  a  brighter  ring  than  Saturn's  had  been  folded 
around  it ;  whose  character  has  formed  the  ideal  of  God,  the 
pattern  of  man,  and  the  moral  spring  of  society — who  has 
carried  Jewish  blood  with  him  aloft  to  the  very  Throne  of 
God ;  and  in  whose  steadfast  smile,  streaming  forth  from 
Jerusalem,  all  nations  and  all  worlds  are  yet  to  be  blessed. 

We  pass  to  analyse,  in  a  general  way,  Disraeli's  intellectual 
powers.  These  are  exceedingly  varied.  He  has  one  of  the 
sharpest  and  clearest  of  intellects,  not,  perhaps,  of  the  most 
philosophical  order,  but  exceedingly  penetrating  and  acute.  He 
has  a  fine  fancy,  soaring  up  at  intervals  into  high  imagination, 
and  marking  him  a  genuine  child  of  that  nation  from  whom 
came  forth  the  loftiest,  richest,  and  most  impassioned  song 
which  earth  has  ever  witnessed — the  nation  of  Isaiah,  Ezekiel, 
Solomon,  and  Job.  He  has  little  humor,  but  a  vast  deal  of 
diamond-pointed  wit.  The  whole  world  knows  his  powers  of 
sarcasm.  They  have  never  been  surpassed  in  the  combination 
of  savage  force,  and,  shall  we  say,  Satanic  coolness,  of  energy 
and  of  point,  of  the  fiercest  animus  within,  and  the  utmost 
elegance  of  outward  expression.  He  wields  for  his  weapon  a 
polar  icicle — gigantic  as  a  club — glittering  as  a  star — deadly 
as  a  scimitar — and  cool  as  eternal  frost.  His  style  and  lan- 
guage are  the  faithful  index  of  these  varied  and  brilliant  pow- 
ers. His  sentences  are  almost  always  short,  epigrammatic, 
conclusive — pointed  with  wit  and  starred  with  imagery — and 
so  rapid  in  their  bickering,  sparkling  progress  !  One,  while 
reading  the  better  parts  of  his  novels,  seems  reading  a  record 
of  the  conversations  of  Napoleon. 

We  saw,  in  a  late  Edinburgh  journal,  a  comparison  of  Dis- 
raeli to  Byron ;  he  seems  to  us  to  bear  a  resemblance,  still 
more  striking,  to  Bonaparte.  The  same  decisive  energy ;  the 
same  quick,  meteoric  motions ;  the  same  sharp,  satiric  power ; 
the  same  insulation,  even  while  mingling  among  men ;  the 


BENJAMIN    DISRAELI.  361 


same  heart  of  fire,  concealed  by  an  outside  of  frost  ;  the  same 
epigrammatic  conciseness  of  style,  alternating  with  barbaric 
brilliance ;  the  same  decidedly  Oriental  tastes,  in  manner,  lan- 
guage, equipage,  everything;  the  same  rapidity  of  written  and 
spoken  style;  the  same  inconsistency,  self-will,  self-reliance, 
belief  in  race  and  destiny ;  the  same  proneness  to  fatal  blun- 
ders, and  the  same  power  of  recovering  from  their  effects,  and 
of  drowning  the  noise  of  the  fall  in  that  of  the  daring  flight 
which  instantly  succeeds  it,  distinguish  both  the  soldier  and  the 
statesman.  Indeed,  the  character  and  history  of  David  Alroy 
seem  a  fictitious  representation  of  Napoleon,  as  well  as  a 
faintly-disguised  alias  of  the  author's  own  character  and  anti- 
cipated career.  Napoleon  himself,  we  have  always  thought, 
had  more  of  the  Jew  in  him  than  of  either  the  Frenchman  or 
the  Italian,  although  he  unquestionably  combined  something 
of  all  the  three.  He  had  the  Frenchman's  bustling  activity 
and  fiery  irritability  of  temper ;  the  Italian's  slow,  deep,  long- 
winded  subtlety  of  revenge ;  and  the  Jew's  superstition  (al- 
though not  his  religion),  his  high-toned  purpose,  his  hot  blood, 
and  his  figurative  fancy.  He  was  infinitely  more  of  an  ori- 
ental sultan  than  of  an  occidental  prince;  and  had  he,  instead 
of  seeking  in  vain  to  conciliate  the  Mahometans  by  a  pretended 
faith  in  their  prophet,  given  himself  out  as  the  Messiah  of  the 
Jews,  the  whole  Hebrew  race  would  have  flocked  to  his  stand- 
ard. As  it  was,  he  did  visit  the  Holy  Land,  he  "  set  up  his 
standard  on  the  glorious  holy  mountain" — gave  battle  under 
the  shadow  of  Tabor — and  received  in  Palestine  the  first 
whiff  of  that  fell  blast  which  was  ultimately  to  overthrow  his 
empire,  and  to  reduce  it  to  the  most  magnificent  of  ruins — 
the  Coliseum  of  fallen  monarchies. 

To  return  to  Disraeli,  our  great  plea  for  him  is  this — he 
has  fought  in  his  own  person  the  battle  of  a  whole  race ; 
baffled  oft,  he  has  perpetually  returned  to  the  charge ;  placed 
at  desperate  odds,  and  opposed  by  strongest  prejudices,  he  has, 
by  energy,  intellect,  and  indomitable  perseverance,  triumphed 
over  them  all.  We  care  not  what  his  enemies  may  choose  to 
call  him — an  adventurer,  a  puppy,  a  roue,  a  charlatan,  are  a 
few  of  the  hard  names  which  have  been  flung  against  him,  and 
they  may  contain  in  them  a  degree  of  truth;  but  no  such 
shower  of  hailstones  can  prevail  to  hide  from  our  view  that 


362  MISCELLANEOUS   SKETCHES. 


Figure  sitting  down  amid  the  hisses  and  laughter  of  a  whole 
House  of  Commons,  with  the  words,  "  I  will  sit  down  now, 
but  the  time  will  come  when  you  will  listen,  to  me."  This 
was  not  the  language  of  mere  petulance  and  injured  conceit. 
It  was  that  of  a  man  driven,  by. insult  and  obloquy,  to  consult 
the  very  depths  of  his  self-consciousness,  which  sent  up  an 
answer  in  oracle  and  in  prophecy.  The  proof  of  anything  that 
professes  to  be  prophetic,  lies,  of  course,  in  the  fulfillment. 
And  his  prediction  was,  need  we  say,  fulfilled.  Within  seven 
years  or  less,  this  rejected  and  despised  member  of  the  Com- 
mons is  speaking  to  the  largest,  most  attentive,  and  most 
amused  and  thrilled  assemblages  ever  convened  within  its 
walls — is  castigating  Sir  Kobert  Peel,  and  drawing  blood  at 
every  blow — is  ruling  the  Conservative  party — and  is  treated 
with  respect  even  by  O'Connell,  his  erst  most  contemptuous 
and  formidable  foe.  A  year  or  two  more,  he  is  the  leader  of 
the  Commons  and  the  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer.  This 
we  say,  is  true  power,  and  we  cannot  but  exult,  much  as  we 
do  differ  in  many  important  matters  from  Disraeli,  in  witness- 
ing the  rapid  rise  of  this  scion  of  a  despised  and  proscribed 
family  to  the  height  of  reputation  and  influence ;  and  cannot 
but  compare  it  to  the  history  of  the  shepherd-boy  of  Bethle- 
hem, who  passed,  by  a  few  strides,  from  waiting  on  the  ewes 
with  young  to  the  summit  of  fame  as  a  poet,  and  of  power  as 
a  king. 

We  like,  we  must  say  again,  the  merit  that  struggles  into 
success  infinitely  more  than  that  which  attains  an  early,  and 
quick,  and  easy  triumph.  Look  at  the  career  of  Macaulay, 
and  compare  it  with  Disraeli's.  The  former  rose  instantly  in- 
to popularity  as  a  writer ;  he  rose  instantly  into  fame  as  a  par- 
liamentary orator.  Till  his  richly-deserved  rejection  by  Edin- 
burgh, there  was  not  a  single  "  crook"  in  his  "  lot."  Even 
that  city  has  since  degraded  itself  by  kneeling,  "  like  a  tame  ele- 
phant," to  receive  once  more  its  imperious  rider.  Disraeli's  mot- 
to, on  the  other  hand,  like  Burke's,  was  Nitar  in  adversum  ; 
and,  like  him,  at  every  turnpike  he  had  to  present  his  pass- 
port. If  Macaulay  seem  more  consistent,  it  has  been  because 
he  has  always  run  in  the  rut  of  a  party,  and  never  entertained 
really  bold,  broad,  and  independent  views.  Macaulay,  once 
exalted,  can  kick  at  those  who  are  farther  down  than  himself ; 


BENJAMIN    DISttAELl.  363 


but  he  never  could  have  had  the  moral  heroism  to  have  looked 
up  from  the  dust  of  contempt  into  which  he  had  been  hurled 
by  six  hundred  of  his  peers,  and  to  have  said,  "  the  time  will 
come  that  you  will  listen  to  me."  We  are  far  from  compar- 
ing Disraeli  to  Macaulay,  in  point  of  learning,  taste,  or  ner- 
vous energy  of  style  ;  but  we  are  convinced  that,  in  inventive- 
ness, ingenuity,  originality,  and  natural  power  of  genius,  he  is 
superior. 

At  the  word  "  originality,"  we  see  some  of  our  readers 
starting,  and  recalling  to  their  minds  the  "  plagiarisms"  of 
Disraeli.  We  have  often  had  occasion  to  despise  popular 
clamors  against  public  men,  especially  when  swelled  by  the 
voices  of  a  needy,  mendacious,  and  profligate  press  ;  but  there 
has  been  seldom  a  clamor  more  utterly  contemptible  than  that 
raised  against  Disraeli  for  plagiarism.  There  lives  not,  nor 
ever  perhaps  lived,  a  literary,  or  clerical,  or  parliamentary 
man,  who  has  not  now  and  then,  in  the  strong  pressure  of 
haste,  been  driven  to  avail  himself  of  the  labors  of  others, 
whether  by  the  appropriation  of  thought  or  of  language,  of 
principles  or  of  passages.  Think  of  Milton,  Mirabeau,  Fox, 
Chalmers,  Hall — all  these  were  guilty  of  appropriations  con- 
siderably larger  than  any  charged  against  Disraeli.  Milton 
has  been  called  the  "  celestial  thief;"  Mirabeau  got  the  ablest 
of  his  speeches  from  Dumont ;  Fox  was  often  primed  by 
Burke.  Most  of  the  thinking  in  Chalrner's  "  Astronomical 
Discourses"  is  derived  from  Andrew  Fuller's  "  Gospel  its  own 
Witness."  Many  of  Hall's  brightest  gems  of  figure  are  taken 
from  others — from  Burke,  Grattan,  and  Warburton — and  one 
or  two  of  them  have  been  retaken  by  Macaulay  from  Hall. 
Plagiarism,  in  the  shape  of  petty  larceny,  is  so  general,  that 
it  has  ceased  to  be  counted  a  crime ;  it  is  only  the  habitual 
thief,  the  man  who  lives  by  plunder,  and  who  plunders  on  a 
large  scale,  that  deserves  the  halter.  Now  Disraeli  is  not 
such  a  man.  His  works  and  speeches  are  before  the  world  ; 
the  Argus-eyes  of  a  multitudinous  envy  have  long  been  fixed 
upon  them,  and  the  result  has  been  that  not  above  two  or 
three  passages  have  been  proved  to  be  copied  from  other 
writers,  and  all  his  more  brilliant  and  characteristic  works — 
"  Alroy,"  "  Iskander,"  "  Coningsby,"  "  Contarini  Fleming," 
"  The  Young  Duke,"  and  "  Tancred" — are,  intus  et  in  cute, 


364  MISCELLANEOUS    SKETCHES. 


his  own.  Are  there  ten  living  writers  of  whom  the  same,  or 
anything  approaching  to  the  same  statement,  can  be  made  ? 

We  know  not  a  little  of  the  workings,  open  or  secret,  both 
of  the  clerical  and  of  the  literary  worlds ;  and  are  certain  that 
there  never  was  a  period  in  which  more  mean,  malignant,  and 
deplorable  envy  and  detraction  were  working,  whether  openly 
or  covertly,  both  among  authors  and  divines — an  envy  that 
spares  not  even  the  dead,  that  spits  out  its  venom  against 
names  which  have  long  been  written  as  if  in  stars  on  the  firma- 
ment of  reputation,  but  which  wars  especially  with  those  liv- 
ing celebrities  who  are  too  honest  to  belong  to  any  party,  too 
progressive  to  be  chained  to  any  formula,  too  great  to  be  put 
down,  but  not  too  great  to  be  reviled  and  slandered,  and  whose 
very  independence  and  strongly  pronounced  individuality  be- 
come the  principal  charges  against  them.  Who  shall  write 
the  dark  history  of  that  serpentine  stream  of  slander  which  is 
winding  through  all  our  literature  at  present  like  one  of  the 
arms  of  Acheron,  and  which  is  damaging  the  public  and  the 
private  characters,  too,  of  many  a  man  who  is  entirely  unaware 
jof  the  presence  and  the  progress  of  the  foul  and  insidious 
poison  ?  He  that  would  lay  bare  the  shameful  secret  history 
of  many  of  our  influential  journals,  and  of  our  church  cliques, 
would  be  a  benefactor  to  literature,  to  morality,  to  religion, 
and  to  man. 

Since  beginning  this  paper,  our  attention  has  been  called  to 
the  onslaught  of  the  "  Times"  on  Disraeli.  It  has  forcibly 
recalled  to  our  mind  the  words  of  Burns — 

"  Oh,  wad  some  power  the  giftie  gi'e  us, 
To  see  ourselves  as  ithers  see  us  !" 

In  describing  Disraeli  as  the  incarnation  of  genius  without 
conscience,  how  faithfully  has  the  "  Times"  described  the  gen- 
eral notion  in  reference  to  itself,  provided  the  word  "  intellect" 
be  substituted  for  "genius."  For,  with  all  the  talent  of  the 
"  Times,"  we  doubt  if  it  has  ever  displayed  true  genius,  or  if 
one  paragraph  of  real  inspiration  can  be  quoted  from  amid  its 
sounding  commonplaces  and  brilliant  insincerities.  But  talent, 
without  even  the  pretence  of  principle,  is  so  notoriously  its 
characteristic,  that  we  marvel  at  the  coolness  with  which  it 
takes  off  its  own  sobriquet,  and  sticks  it  on  the  brow  of  an- 


BENJAMIN    DISRAELI.  365 


other — marvel  till  we  remember  that  the  impudence  of  the 
leading  journal  is,  like  all  its  other  properties,  its  mendacity, 
its  mystery,  its  inconsistency,  its  tergiversation,  its  circulation, 
and  its  advertising,  on  a  colossal  scale. 

We  are  not  prepared  as  yet  to  predict  the  future  history  or 
the  ultimate  place  of  Benjamin  Disraeli.  One  thing  in  him 
is  most  hopeful.  He  does  not  know,  any  more  than  Welling- 
ton or  Byron,  what  it  is  to  be  beaten.  His  motto  is,  "  Never 
say  die."  When  newly  down  he  is  always  most  dangerous. 
Prodigious  as  is  the  amount  of  abuse  and  detraction  he  is  now 
enduring,  it  may  be  doubted  if  he  were  ever  so  popular,  or  if 
there  be  a  single  man  alive  who  is  exciting  such  interest,  or 
awakening  such  expectation.  This  proves,  first,  that  he  is  no 
temporary  rage  or  pet  of  the  public ;  secondly,  that  he  has 
something  else  than  a  selfish  object  in  view ;  and,  thirdly,  that 
there  is  a  certain  inexhaustible  stuff  in  him  which  men  call 
genius,  and  which  is  sure  to  excite  hope  in  reference  to  its 
possessor  till  the  last  moment  of  his  earthly  existence.  Glad- 
stone is  a  man  of  high  talent ;  but  few  expect  anything  extra- 
ordinary from  his  future  exertions.  Disraeli  is  a  man  of 
genius,  and  many  look  for  some  grand  conclusive  display  or 
displays  of  its  power.  Let  him  gird  himself  for  the  task. 
Let  him  forget  the  past.  Let  him  pay  no  heed  whatever  to 
his  barking,  snarling  opponents.  Let  him  commit  himself  to 
some  great  new  idea,  or,  at  least,  to  some  new  and  wider 
phase  of  his  old  one.  He  has  been  hitherto  considerably  like 
Byron  in  his  undulating  and  uneven  course,  in  the  alternate 
sinking  and  swelling  of  the  wave  of  his  Destiny.  Let  him 
ponder  that  poet's  last  noble  enterprise,  by  which  he  was 
redeeming  at  once  himself  and  a  whole  nation  when  he  died. 
Let  Disraeli  address  himself  to  some  kindred  undertaking  in 
reference  to  the  children  of  his  people  ;  and  then,  as  Byron 
died  amid  the  blessings  of  the  Greeks,  may  he  inherit,  in  life, 
in  death,  and  in  all  after-time,  the  gratitude  and  praises  of 
God's  ancient  and  still  much-loved  children — the  Jews.  We 
are  hopeful  that  there  is  some  such  brilliant  achievement  be- 
fore one  of  the  few  men  of  genius  the  House  of  Commons  now 
contains. 


366  MISCELLANEOUS    SKETCHES. 


NO.  VIII— PROFESSOR  WILSON. 

IN  our  paper  on  Alexander  Smith,  we  said  that  there  was 
something  exceedingly  sweet  and  solemn  in  the  emotions  with 
which  we  watch  the  uprise  of  a  new  and  true  poet.  And  we 
now  add,  that  exceedingly  sad  and  solemn  are  the  feelings 
with  which  we  regard  the  downgoing  and  departure  of  a  great 
old  bard.  We  have  analogies  with  which  to  compare  the  first 
of  these  events,  such  as  the  one  we  selected — that  of  the 
appearance  of  a  new  star  in  the  heavens.  But  we  have  no  an- 
alogy for  the  last,  for  we  have  never  yet  seen  a  star  or  sun 
setting  for  ever.  We  have  seen  the  orb  trembling  at  the  gates 
of  the  west,  and  dipping  reluctantly  in  the  ocean ;  but  we  knew 
that  he  was  to  appear  again,  and  take  his  appointed  place  in 
the  firmament,  and  this  forbade  all  sadness  except  such  as  is 
always  interwoven  with  the  feeling  of  the  sublime.  But  were 
the  nations  authentically  apprised  that  on  a  certain  evening 
the  sun  was  to  go  down  to  rise  no  more,  what  straining  of 
eyes,  and  heaving  of  hearts,  and  shedding  of  tears  would  there 
be  ! — what  climbing  of  loftiest  mountains  to  get  the  last  look 
of  his  beams  ! — what  a  shriek,  loud  and  deep,  would  arise  when 
the  latest  ray  had  disappeared ! — how  many  would,  in  despair 
and  misery,  share  in  the  death  of  their  luminary ! — what  a 
"  horror  of  great  darkness"  would  sink  over  the  earth  when  he 
had  departed ! — and  how  would  that  horror  be  increased  by 
the  appearance  of  the  fixed  stars, 

"  Distinct,  but  distant — clear,  but  ah,  bow  cold  !" 

which  in  vain  came  forth  to  gild  the  gloom  and  supply  the 
blank  left  by  the  departed  king  of  glory !  With  some  such 
emotions  as  are  suggested  by  this  supposition,  do  men  witness 
the  departure  of  a  great  genius.  His  immortality  they  may 
firmly  believe  in  ;  but  what  is  it  to  them  ?  He  has  gone,  they 
know,  to  other  spheres,  but  has  ceased  to  be  a  source  of  light, 
and  warmth,  and  cheerful  genial  influence  to  theirs  for  ever 
and  ever.  Just  as  his  life  alone  deserved  the  name  of  life — 
native,  exuberant,  overflowing  life — so  his  death  alone  is 
worthy  of  the  name — the  blank,  total,  terrible  name  of  death. 


PROFESSOR    WILSON.  367 


The  place  of  the  majority  of  men  can  easily  be  supplied,  nay, 
is  never  left  empty ;  but  his  cannot  be  filled  up  in  scecula  scec- 
ulorum.  Hence  men  are  sometimes  disposed,  with  the  ancient 
poets,  to  excuse  the  heavens  of  envy  in  removing  the  great 
spirit  from  among  them.  But  the  grief  becomes  profounder 
still  when  the  departed  great  one  was  the  last  representative 
of  a  giant  race — the  last  monarch  in  a  dynasty  of  mind.  Then 
there  seem  to  die  over  again  in  him  all  his  intellectual  kin- 
dred ;  then,  too,  the  thought  arises,  who  is  to  succeed  ? — and 
in  the  shadow  of  his  death-bed  youthful  genius  appears  for  a 
time  dwindled  into  insignificance,  and  we  would  willingly  pour 
out  all  the  poetry  of  the  young  age  as  a  libation  on  his  grave. 

Such  emotions,  at  least,  are  crossing  our  minds  as  we  con- 
template the  death  of  Christopher  North,  and  remember  that 
he  was  one  of  the  last  of  those  mighty  men — the  Coleridges, 
Wordsworths,  Byrons,  Campbells,  Shelleys — who  cast  such  a 
lustre  on  the  literature  and  poetry  of  the  beginning  of  the 
century.  They  have  dropped  away  star  by  star,  and  not 
above  two  or  three  of  the  number  continue  now  to  glimmer : 
they  can  hardly  be  said  to  shine. 

Wilson's  death  had  been  long  expected,  and  yet  it  took  the 
public  by  surprise.  It  seemed  somehow  strange  that  such  a 
man  could  die.  The  words,  "  death  of  Professor  Wilson," 
seemed  paradoxical,  so  full  was  he  of  the  riotous  and  over- 
flowing riches  of  bodily  and  of  mental  being ;  and  the  excla- 
mation "  Impossible,"  we  doubt  not,  escaped  from  the  lips  of 
many  who  could  not  think  of  him  except  as  moving  along  in 
the  pride  of  his  magnificent  personality — a  walking  world  of 
life. 

We  propose  while  his  grave  is  yet  green,  throwing  a  frail 
chaplet  upon  it,  in  addition  to  our  former  tribute,  which,  we 
are  proud  to  say,  was  not  rejected  or  despised  by  the  great 
man  to  whom  it  was  paid.  We  mean,  first,  to  sketch  rapidly 
the  events  of  his  history,  and  then  to  speak  of  his  personal 
appearance,  his  character,  his  genius  in  its  native  powers  and 
aptitudes,  his  achievements  as  a  critic,  humorist,  writer  of  fic- 
tion, professor,  poet,  and  periodical  writer ;  his  relation  to  his 
age ;  his  influence  on  his  country ;  and  the  principal  defects 
in  his  character  and  genius. 

We  may  premise  that  in  the  following  outline  of  his  life  we 


>68  MISCELLANEOUS    SKETCHES. 


pretend  to  do  nothing  except  state  a  few  facts  concerning  him 
which  are  generally  known.  His  full  story  must  be  told  by 
others ;  if,  indeed,  it  shall  ever  be  fully  told  at  all. 

John  Wilson  was  born  in  Paisley  in  the  year  1785.  We 
once,  indeed,  heard  a  sapient  bailie,  in  a  speech  at  a  Philo- 
sophical soiree  in  Edinburgh,  call  him  a  "  native  of  the  mod- 
ern Athens,"  but,  although  the  statement  was  received  with 
cheers,  and  although  the  worthy  dignitary  might  have  had 
sources  of  information  peculiar  to  himself  on  the  subject,  we 
are  rather  inclined  to  hold  by  the  general  notion  that  he  was 
a  Paisley  body,  with  a  universal  soul.  In  Paisley  they  still 
show  the  house  where  he  was  born,  and  are  justly  proud  of  the 
chief  among  their  many  native  poets.  No  town  in  Scotland  in 
proportion  to  its  size,  has  produced  more  distinguished  men 
than  Paisley — Tannahill,  Alexander  Wilson,  Motherwell  (who 
spent  bis  boyhood  and  youth,  at  least,  in  Paisley),  and 
Christopher  North,  are  only  a  few  of  its  poetic  sons.  Wil- 
son's father  was  a  wealthy  manufacturer  in  the  town;  his 
mother  was  a  woman  of  great  good  sense  and  piety,  and  he 
imbibed  from  her  a  deep  sense  of  religion.  Paisley  is  a  dull 
town  in  itself,  but  is  surrounded  by  many  points  of  interest. 
Near  it  is  the  hole  in  the  canal  where  poor  Tannahill  drowned 
himself;  farther  off  are  the  Braes  of  Gleniffer,  commemorated 
in  one  of  the  same  poet's  songs.  The  river  Cart — a  river 
sung  by  Campbell — runs  through  the  town,  after  passing 
through  some  romantic  moorlands.  Mearns  Muir  is  not  far 
away — a  muir  sprinkled  with  lochs,  which  Wilson  has  often 
described  in  his  articles  in  "  Blackwood,"  and  on  the  remoter 
outskirts  of  which  stands  the  farm-house  where  Pollok  was 
born,  and  whence  he  saw  daily  the  view  so  picturesquely  repro- 
duced by  him  in  the  "  Course  of  Time,"  of 

"  Scotland's  northern  battlement  of  hilK" 

All  these  were  early  and  favorite  haunts  of  Wilson,  who  ap- 
pears to  have  been  what  is  called  in  Scotland  a  "  royd'  boy 
(roystering),  fond  of  nutting,  cat-shooting,  fishing,  and  orchard- 
robbing  expeditions ;  the  head  of  his  class  in  the  school,  and 
the  leader  of  every  trick  and  mischief  out  of  it.  At  an  early 
age  he  was  sent  to  the  Highlands,  to  the  care  of  Dr.  Joseph 
Maclntyre  of  Grlenorchy,  an  eminent  clergyman  of  the  Church 


PROFESSOR    WILSON.  369 


of  Scotland,  who  besides  multifarious  labors  as  a  minister  and 
a  farmer,  found  time  to  superintend  an  academy  for  boarders. 
Our  worthy  father  knew  him  well,  and  told  us  some  curious 
traits  of  his  character.  He  was  a  pious,  laborious,  intelligent, 
and,  at  the  same  time,  a  shrewd,  knowing,  somewhat  close-fist- 
ed old  carle.  To  his  care  Wilson,  then  a  loose-hanging,  tall, 
thin,  bright-eyed  boy,  was  sent  by  his  father,  and  the  doctor 
was  very  kind  to  him.  He  spent  his  holidays  in  rambling 
among  the  black  mountains  which  surround  the  head  of  Loch 
Lomond,  sailing  on  the  lake,  conversing  with  the  shepherds, 
and  picking  up  local  traditions,  which,  on  his  return  to  the 
manse,  he  used  to  repeat  to  the  doctor  with  such  eloquence 
and  enthusiasm,  that  the  old  man,  his  eyes  now  filled  with 
tears,  and  now  swimming  with  laughter,  said  again  and  again, 
"  My  man,  you  should  write  story-books."  Wilson  told  us 
that  this  advice  rang  in  his  ears  till  it  set  him  to  writing  the 
"  Lights  and  Shadows  of  Scottish  Life."  So  let  us  honor  the 
memory  of  the  good  old  Oberlin  of  Glenorchy,  whenever  we 
read  those  immortal  sketches.  Maclntyre  also,  (who,  though 
an  eccentric  and  pawky,  was  a  truly  good  man)  did,  we  believe, 
not  a  little  to  rivet  on  the  poet's  mind  the  religious  advices 
and  instructions  of  his  mother.  It  was  probably  owing  to 
this,  too,  that  Wilson  displays  in  all  his  writings  such  a  re- 
spect for  the  clerical  character,  and  uniformly  uses  the  word 
"  manse"  as  if  it  were  the  word  home. 

From  the  school  at  Glenorchy  he  was  sent  to  the  University 
of  Glasgow,  which  then  mustered  a  very  admirable  staff  of 
professors,  as  well  as  a  noble  young  race  of  rising  students. 
There  was  (a  relative  of  our  own,  by  the  way)  Richardson, 
Professor  of  Latin,  a  highly  accomplished  scholar  and  elegant 
writer,  but  whose  works  seem  now  in  a  great  measure  forgot- 
ten. There  was  Jardine  of  the  Logic,  a  man  of  great  indus- 
try, method,  communicative  gift,  and  fatherly  interest  in  h?'s 
students  ;  in  fact,  as  Lord  Jeffrey  and  many  others  of  his  em- 
inent pupils  confessed,  one  of  the  best  of  conceivable  teachers. 
There  was  Millar,  the  eminent  writer  on  the  Laws  of  Nations. 
And  there  was  Young  of  the  Greek  chair,  a  man  of  burning 
enthusiasm,  as  well  as  of  vast  erudition,  whose  readings  and 
comments  on  Homer  made  his  students  thrill  and  weep  by 
turns.  Our  readers  will  find  a  glowing  picture  of  him  in 
ifi* 


370  MISCELLANEOUS    SKETCHES. 


"Peter's  Letters."  The  prelections  of  these  men  must  have 
tended  mightily  to  develop  the  mind  of  Wilson.  He  was  ben- 
efitted,  too,  by  intimacy  with  many  distinguished  contempo- 
rary students.  There  was — a  little  later  in  the  classes,  but 
still  contemporaneous — Lockhart,  afterwards  his  associate  in 
many  a  fair  and  many  a  foul-foughten  field  of  letters.  There 
was  Michael  Scott,  author  of  "  Tom  Cringle's  Log,"  who  be- 
came a  West  Indian  merchant,  but  returned  to  his  native  city, 
Glasgow,  aad  wrote  those  striking  naval  narratives,  under  an 
assumed  name  in  "  Blackwood,"  without  being  discovered,  till 
some  little  allusions  to  early  days  in  one  of  the  chapters  be- 
trayed the  secret  to  Wilson,  who  cried  out,  "  Aut  Michael  aut 
Diabolus !"  his  old  college  companion  standing  detected.  There 
was  a  man,  since  well  known  in  Scotland,  and  assuredly  a  per- 
son of  very  rare  gifts  of  natural  eloquence  and  humor — Dr. 
John  Ritchie,  late  of  Potterrow,  Edinburgh — who  used  to  con- 
tend with  Wilson  at  leaping,  football,  and  other  athletic  exer- 
cises, at  which  both  were  masters,  and  nearly  matched.  And 
there  was  Thomas  Campbell,  with  whom  Wilson  passed  many 
a  joyous  hour,  both  in  Glasgow,  and  in  frequent  excursions, 
on  their  holidays,  or  in  the  summer  vacation,  into  the  near 
Highlands,  and  who  in  spite  of  diversities  of  taste  and  of  pol- 
itics, continued  on  friendly  terms  with  him  to  the  last. 

At  college,  Wilson  was,  we  believe,  distinguished,  as  he  had 
been  at  school,  by  irregular  diligence,  and  by  frequent  fits  of 
idleness,  by  expertness  when  he  pleased  at  his  studies,  and 
by  expertness  at  all  times  in  games,  frolics,  and  queer  adven- 
tures From  Glasgow,  he  was  sent  to  Magdalene  College, 
Oxford,  and  there  his  character  retained  and  deepened  all 
its  peculiar  traits.  He  now  read,  and  now  dissipated  hard, 
as  most  Oxford  students  of  that  day  did.  He  took  several 
college  honors,  and  was  the  first  boxer,  leaper,  cock-fighter, 
and  runner  among  the  students.  He  gained  the  Newdegate 
prize  for  poetry,  and  became  in  politics  a  Radical  so  flaming, 
that  it  is  said  he  would  not  allow  a  servant  to  black  his  shoes, 
but  might  be  seen — the  yellow-haired,  glorious  savage — of  a 
morning  performing  that  interesting  operation  himself !  He 
was  contemporary  with  De  Quincey,  but  they  never  met,  at 
least  wittingly  •  although  we  imagine  the  little  bashful  scholar 
must  have  sometimes  seen,  and  rather  shrunk,  from  the  tall 


PROFESSOR    WILSON.  37. 


athlete,  rushing  like  a  tempest  on  to  the  yards,  or  parading 
under  the  arches  of  the  old  Mediaeval  University. 

At  Oxford,  Wilson  became  acquainted  with  Wordsworth's 
poetry.  It  made  a  deep  and  permanent  impression  upon  his 
mind.  He  imagined  that  he  found  in  it  a  union  of  the  severe 
grandeur  of  the  Grecian,  with  the  wild  charm  of  the  Romantic 
school  of  poetry.  It  determined  his  bias  toward  subjective 
instead  of  objective  song;  materially,  as  we  think,  to  his  dis- 
advantage. Wilson  was  by  nature  fitted  to  be,  as  a  poet,  a 
great  compound  of  the  subjective,  and  the  subjective  with  the 
objective  somewhat  preponderating,  but  the  influence  of  Words- 
worth, counteracted  only  in  part  by  that  of  Scott,  made  the 
subjective  predominate  unduly  in  his  verse;  and  he  who  might 
have  been  almost  a  Shakspeare,  had  he  followed  his  native  ten- 
dency, became,  in  poetry,  only  a  secondary  member  of  the 
Lake  School. 

When  he  left  Oxford,  he  betook  himself  to  the  Lake  coun- 
try, where  his  father  had  purchased  the  estate  of  Elleray,  sit- 
uated upon  the  beautiful  shores  of  Windermere ;  and  there  be- 
came speedily  intimate  with  Wordsworth,  Southay,  Coleridge, 
and  De  Quincey.  This  last  describes  him  as  being  then  a  tall, 
fresh,  fine-looking  youth,  dressed  like  a  sailor,  and  full  of 
frankness,  eccentricity,  and  fire.  He  was  at  that  time  vibrat- 
ing between  various  schemes  of  life,  all  more  or  less  singular. 
He  was  now  projecting  an  excursion  into  the  interior  of  Af- 
rica, for  he  had  always  a  strong  passion  for  travel,  and  now 
determining  to  be^for  life,  a  writer  of  poetry.  He  contribut- 
ed some  fine  letters  to  Coleridge's  "  Friend,"  under  the  signa- 
ture of  Mathetes.  A  misunderstanding,  however,  arose  be- 
tween them,  and  they  became  estranged  for  a  season.  Words- 
worth's overbearing  dogmatism,  too,  was  rather  much  for 
Wilson.  In  truth,  he  felt  himself  somewhat  overcrowed,  and 
knew  in  his  heart  that  he  had  no  right  to  be  so,  yet  he  con- 
tinued to  admire  both  these  Lake  Denriurgi,  and  became  their 
most  eloquent  interpreter  to  the  public. 

While  at  Elleray,  but  considerably  later  than  this  (in  the 
year  1810,  we  think),  he  met  and  married  his  amiable  wife. 
His  life  previous  to  this  had  been  a  very  romantic  and  adven- 
turous one.  We  might  recount  a  hundred  floating  stories  about 
it,  but  were  assured  a  little  before  his  death,  upon  his  own  au- 


372  MISCELLANEOUS     SKETCHES. 


thority,  that  they  were  in  general  a  "pack  of  lies;"  so  that 
we  refrain  from  more  than  alluding  to  them.  He  was  always 
gipsy,  or  no  gipsy — waiter,  or  no  waiter — the  gentleman,  the 
genius,  and  the  kind-hearted,  affable  man.  His  first  poem 
was  the  "  Isle  of  Palms,"  which  was  welcomed  as  a  very  prom- 
ising slip  of  the  Lake  poetic  tree,  and  criticised  with  consider- 
able favor  by  Jeffrey,  who  showed  in  the  article  a  desire  to 
wean  the  young  bard  from  his  favorite  school  of  "  pond  poets." 
In  1814,  he  came  to  reside  in  Edinburgh,  and  was  called,  nom- 
inally, to  the  bar.  We  are  not  certain,  however,  if  he  ever 
had  a  single  brief,  or  pled  a  single  case.  But  what  an  appa- 
rition among  the  lawyers  of  that  day,  who,  if  Carlyle  may  be 
credited,  "  believed  in  nothing  in  earth,  heaven,  hell,  or  under 
the  earth,"  must  have  been  this  wild-eyed  and  broad-shoulder- 
ed enthusiast,  with  his  long-flowing  locks  !  In  1817  "  Black- 
wood's  Magazine"  was  started,  and  shortly  after,  Wilson, 
who  was  now  dividing  his  time  between  Edinburgh  and  Elle- 
ray,  was  added  to  its  staff,  and  began  that  wondrous  series  of 
contributions,  grave  and  gay,  satiric  and  serious,  mad  and 
wise,  nonsensical  and  profound,  fierce  and  genial,  which  were 
destined  to  irradiate  or  torment  its  pages  for  a  quarter  of  a 
century.  Lockhart  became  his  principal  coadjutor,  and  they 
both  set  themselves  to  write  up  Toryism,  to  write  down  the 
"  Edinburgh  Review,"  to  castigate  the  Cockney  School,  and  to 
illustrate  the  manners,  and  maintain  the  name  among  the  na- 
tions of  the  earth,  of  "  puir  auld  Scotland."  The  success  of 
"  Blackwood"  was  not,  as  seems  now  generally  thought,  instan- 
taneous and  dazzling ;  it  was  slow  and  interrupted ;  it  had 
to  struggle  against  great  opposition,  and  many  prejudices.  It 
got  into  some  disgraceful  scrapes,  particularly  in  the  case  of 
the  melancholy  circumstances  that  led  to  the  death  of  poor 
John  Scott — circumstances  still  somewhat  shrouded  in  mys- 
tery, but  which  certainly  reflected  very  little  credit  on  either 
of  the  editors  of  "  Ebony."  "  Blackguard's  Magazine"  was 
its  sobriquet  for  many  a  long  year,  and  not  till  Lockhart  and 
MacGinn  had  left  it  for  England,  did  the  kindlier  and  better 
management  of  Wilson  give  it  that  high  standing,  which  un- 
der the  coarse  and  clumsy  paws  of  his  son-in-law — the  "  Lau- 
reate of  Clavers" — it  is  again  rapidly  losing. 

Between  the  starting  of  "  Blackwood"  and  Wilson's  elec- 


PROFESSOR    WILSON.  373 


tion  to  the  Moral  Philosophy  chair,  we  remember  nothing 
very  special  in  his  history,  except  his  writing  his  first  and  last 
paper  in  the  "  Edinburgh  Review,"  which  was  a  brilliant  arti- 
cle on  Byron's  fourth  Canto  of  "  Childe  Harold."  and  the  ap- 
pearance of  his  "  City  of  the  Plague."  From  this  much  was 
expected,  but  it  rather  disappointed  the  public.  It  had  beau- 
tiful passages,  but,  as  a  whole,  was  "  dull,  somehow  dull."  It 
aspired  to  be  both  a  great  drama  and  a  great  poem — and  was 
neither.  Two  or  three  pages  of  it  are  still  remembered,  but 
the  poem  itself  has  gone  down,  or,  rather,  never  rose. 

Galled  at  its  reception,  the  author  mentally  resolved,  and 
he  kept  his  resolution,  to  publish  no  more  separate  poems. 
In  1820  Dr.  Thomas  Brown  died,  and  Wilson  was  urged  by 
his  friends,  especially  by  Sir  Walter  Scott,  to  stand  a  candi- 
date for  the  vacant  chair  of  Moral  Philosophy.  It  was  desir- 
able, they  thought,  that  that  should  be  filled  by  one  who  was 
a  Conservative  (Wilson  had  long  ago  renounced  his  Radical- 
ism), and  who  had  genius  and  mettle  besides.  It  was  thought 
good,  too,  that  such  a  man  should  now  have  a  settled  position 
in  society.  His  pretensions  were  fiercely  opposed.  When  a 
boy,  we  fell  in  with  a  file  of  old  "  Scotsmans,"  dated  1820, 
and  assure  our  readers  that  they  could  scarcely  credit  the 
terms  in  which  Wilson  was  then  assailed.  (And  yet  why  say 
this,  after  the  recent  brutal  assaults  on  his  dust  by  the  crea- 
tures of  the  "  .Ass-enaeum,"  and  others  of  the  London  press  ?) 
He  was  accused  of  blasphemy,  of  writing  indecent  parodies  on 
the  Psalms,  of  being  a  turncoat,  of  having  no  original  genius, 
of  having  written  a  bad  bombastic  paper  in  the  "  Edinburgh 
Review,"  &c.  &c.  The  "Scotsman"  did  not  then  seek  to 
"  damn  with  faint  praise,"  but  spoke  out  loud  and  bold.  It 
had  then,  too,  some  critical,  as  well  as  much  political,  power. 
The  fact  was,  party  spirit  was  at  that  time  running  mountains 
high  in  Scotland,  fomented  greatly  by  the  Queen's  case ;  Wil- 
son, besides,  was  as  yet  very  little  known ;  his  poetry  was  not 
popular ;  his  powers  as  a  periodical  writer  were  yet  in  blos- 
som, and  only  his  early  eccentricities  seemed  to  mark  him  out 
from  the  roll  of  common  men.  His  opponent,  Sir  William 
Hamilton,  too,  was  known  to  have  devoted  immense  talent  and 
research  to  the  study  of  moral  and  mental  science,  while  Wil- 
son, it  was  shrewdly  suspected,  required  to  cram  himself  for 


374  MISCELLANEOUS  SKETCHES. 


tbe  office.  Through  dint  of  party  influence,  however,  he  was 
elected ;  and  certainly  none  of  the  numerous  c]an  of  Job-sons 
has  ever  done  more  to  redeem  the  character  of  the  tribe.  He 
cast  a  lustre  even  upon  the  mean  and  rotten  ladder  by  which 
he  had  risen. 

Scott  had  told  "Wilson  (see  "  Scott's  Life"),  that  when 
elected  to  the  chair  he  must  "  forswear  sack,  purge,  and  live 
cleanly  like  a  gentleman.''  And  on  tliis  hint  he  proceeded  to 
act.  He  commenced  to  prepare  his  lectures  with  great  care  ; 
and  his  success  in  the  chair  was  such  as  to  abash  his  adver- 
saries, and  astonish  even  his  friends.  He  became  the  darling 
of  his  students ;  and  the  publication  of  his  "  Lights  and  Sha- 
dows," and  the  "  Trials  of  Margaret  Lyndsay,"  contributed 
to  raise  his  reputation,  not  only  as  a  writer  but  as  a  man. 

He  continued  still  to  write  in  "  Blackwood,"  and  when 
Lockhart,  in  1826,  went  to  London  to  edit  the  "  Quarterly 
Review,"  Wilson  became  the  unrestricted  lord,  although  not 
the  ostensible  editor,  of  that  magazine,  with  the  history  of 
which  for  ten  years  he  was  identified.  How  the  public  did,  iu 
these  days,  watch  and  weary  for  each  First  of  the  Month !  for 
sure  it  was  to  bring  with  it  either  a  sunny  and  splendid  morn- 
ing of  poetic  eloquence,  or  a  terrible  and  sublime  tornado  of 
invective  and  satiric  power.  "  Who  is  next,"  was  the  general 
question,  "  to  be  crowned  as  by  the  hand  of  Apollo,  or  to  be 
scorched  as  by  a  wafture  from  the  torch  of  the  Furies .?"  The 
"  Noctes  Arnbrosianse"  especially  intoxicated  the  world.  They 
resembled  the  marvels  of  genius,  of  the  stage,  and  of  ventrilo- 
quism united  to  produce  one  bewitching  and  bewildering  whole. 
The  author  seemed  a  diffused  Shakspeare,  or  Shakspeare  in  a 
hurry,  and  with  a  printer's  "  devil"  waiting  at  his  door. 
Falstaff  was  for  a  season  eclipsed  by  the  "  Shepherd,"  and 
Mercutio  and  Hamlet  together  had  their  glories  darkened  by 
the  blended  wit  and  wisdom,  pathos  and  fancy,  of  Christopher 
North.  The  power  of  these  dialogues  lay  in  the  admirable 
combination,  interchange,  and  harmonious  play  of  the  most 
numerous,  diverse,  and  contradictory  elements  and  characters. 
Passages  of  the  richest  and  most  poetical  eloquence  were  inter- 
mixed with  philosophical  discussion,  with  political  invectives, 
with  literary  criticism,  with  uproarious  fun  and  nonsense,  with 
the  floating  gossip  of  the  day,  and  with  the  sharpest  of  small 


PROFESSOR    WILSON.  375 


talk.  The  Tragedy,  the  Comedy,  and  the  Farce  were  all 
there,  and  the  farce  was  no  afterpiece,  but  intermingled  with 
the  entire  body  of  the  play.  The  author  interrupts  a  descrip- 
tion of  Glencoc  or  Ben  Nevis,  to  cry  out  for  an  additional 
sausage,  and  breaks  away  from  a  discussion  on  the  origin  of 
evil  to  compound  a  tumbler  of  toddy.  While  De  Quincey  is 
explaining  Kant's  "  Practical  Reason,"  the  Shepherd  is  grunt- 
ing "  Glorious"  over  a  plate  of  hotch-potch  ;  and  from  under 
North,  who  is  painting  a  Covenanting  martyrdom,  Tickler 
suddenly  withdraws  the  chair,  and  the  description  falls  with 
the  old  man  below  the  table.  Each  dialogue  is  in  fact  a 
miniature  "  Don  Juan,"  jerking  you  down  at  every  point  from 
the  highest  to  the  lowest  reaches  of  feeling  and  thought ;  and 
driving  remorselessly  through  its  own  finest  passages,  in  order 
to  secure  the  effects  of  a  burlesque  oddity,  compounded  of  the 
grave  and  the  ludicrous,  the  lofty  and  the  low.  Each  number 
in  the  series  may  be  compared  to  a  witch's  cauldron,  crowded 
and  heaving  with  all  strange  substances,  the  very  order  of 
which  is  disorganisation,  but  with  the  weird  light  of  imagina- 
tion glimmering  over  the  chaos,  and  giving  it  a  sort  of  un- 
earthly unity.  Verily,  they  are  Walpurgis  Nights,  these 
"  Noctes  Ambrosianas."  The  English  language  contains  no- 
thing so  grotesque  as  some  of  their  ludicrous  descriptions,  no- 
thing so  graphic,  so  intense,  so  terrible,  as  some  of  their 
serious  pictures ;  no  dialogue  more  elastic,  no  criticism  more 
subtle,  no  gossip  more  delightful,  no  such  fine  diffusion,  like 
the  broad  eagle  wing,  and  no  such  vigorous  compression,  like 
the  keen  eagle  talon ;  but  when  we  remember,  besides,  that 
the  "  Noctes"  contain  all  these  merits  combined  into  a  wild 
and  wondrous  whole,  our  admiration  of  the  powers  displayed 
in  them  is  intensified  to  astonishment,  and,  if  not  to  the  pitch 
of  saying,  "  Surely  a  greater  than  Shakspeare  is  here,"  cer- 
tainly to  that  of  admitting  a  mind  of  cognate  and  scarce  infe- 
rior genius. 

Thus,  for  ten  years  did  Wilson  continue,  in  "  Noctes,"  in 
reviews,  in  pictures  of  Scottish  scenery  and  life,  in  criticisms 
on  Homer,  and  Spencer,  and  the  other  great  poets  of  the 
world,  with  undiminished  freshness  and  force,  to  disport  his 
leviathan  powers.  Sport,  indeed,  it  was,  for  he  seldom,  it  is 
said,  employed  more  than  three  or  four  days  in  the  month  in 


376  MISCELLANEOUS    SKETCHES. 


the  preparation  of  his  articles.  When  Magazine-day  ap- 
proached, his  form  ceased  to  be  seen  on  Prince's  Stieet, 
except  at  the  stated  hour  when  he  walked  to  his  class.  He 
shut  himself  up,  permitted  his  beard  to  grow,  kept  beside  him 
now  a  tea-pot  and  now  a  series  of  soda-water  bottles,  and 
poured  out  his  brilliant  extemporisations,  page  after  page,  as 
fast  as  his  broad  quill  could  move,  till  perhaps  the  half  of  a 
"  Maga"  is  written,  and  for  another  month  the  lion  is  free. 
In  this  improvisatore  fashion,  it  is  said,  he  wrote  his  Essay  on 
Burns  within  a  single  week.  Such  irregular  Titanic  work, 
however,  brought  its  penalties  along  with  it,  and  he  began  by 
and  by  to  "  weary  in  the  greatness  of  its  way."  His  gentle 
wife  was  removed,  too,  about  this  time  by  death  from  his  side, 
and  the  shock  was  terrible.  It  struck  him  to  the  ground.  It 
unstrung  a  man  who  seemed  before  to  possess  the  Nemean 
lion's  nerve.  He  was  found  at  this  time,  by  a  gentleman  who 
visited  him  at  Lasswade,  feeble,  almost  fatuous,  miserable, 
and  unable  to  do  aught  but  weep  and  moan,  like  a  heartbro- 
ken child.  But  the  end  was  not  yet.  He  recovered  by  a 
mighty  bound  his  elasticity  of  mind  and  energy  of  frame.  He 
carried  on  his  professional  labors  with  renewed  vigor  and  suc- 
cess. He  bent  again  the  Ulysses  bow  of  "  Blackwood,"  but 
never,  it  must  be  admitted,  with  the  same  power.  His  "  Dies 
Boreales,"  Compared  to  the  "  Noctes  Ambrosianse,"  were  but 
as  the  days  of  Shetland  in  January,  compared  to  the  nights 
of  Italy  or  of  Greece  in  June. 

We  may  here  appropriately  introduce  the  reminiscences  of 
our  own  intercourse  with  him,  which  indeed  was  very  slight 
and  occasional.  We  had  often  gone  in  to  hear  him  in  his 
class,  although  our  curriculum  of  study  had  taken  place  in 
another  university ;  had  not  been  fascinated  at  first,  but  had 
ultimately  learned  enthusiastically  to  admire  his  manner  of 
teaching — of  which  more  afterwards.  In  1834,  anxious  to 
gain  a  verdict  from  a  critic  so  distinguished,  we  ventured  on 
an  experiment,  at  the  recollection  of  which  we  yet  blush.  We 
sent  him  in  some  Essays,  professing  to  be  by  another.  The 
result  was  of  a  sort  we  had  not  in  our  wildest  dreams  ima- 
gined. Suffice  it  that  he  spoke  of  them  (without  knowing 
their  author)  in  a  manner  which  not  only  bound  us  to  him  for 
life,  but  cheered  and  encouraged  us  mightily  at  that  early 


PROFESSOR    WILSON.  377 


stage  of  our  progress.  When,  years  afterwards,  the  papers 
of  the  "  First  Gallery"  appeared  seriatim  in  the  "  Dumfries 
Herald,"  Wilson  was  no  niggard  encomiast,  and  it  was  greatly 
owing  to  his  kindly  words  that  we  were  induced  to  collect 
them  into  a  volume.  To  himself,  however,  we  had  all  this 
while  never  spoken,  except  for  a  few  minutes  in  his  class-room, 
till  we  called  on  him  in  1844,  along  with  a  friend.  At  first 
the  servant  was  rather  shy,  and  spoke  dubiously  of  the  visi- 
bility of  the  professor ;  but,  upon  our  sending  up  our  names,  wo 
heard  him  on  the  top  of  the  stairs  growling  out  a  hearty  com- 
mand to  admit  us.  In  a  little  he  appeared,  and  such  an  appa- 
rition !  Conceive  the  tall,  strong,  savage-looking  man,  with  a 
beard  wearing  a  week's  growth,  his  hair  half  a  twelvemonth's, 
no  waistcoat,  no  coat,  a  loose  cloak  flung  on  for  the  nonce,  a 
shirt  dirty,  and  which  apparently  had  been  dirty  for  days, 
and,  to  crown  all,  a  huge  cudgel  in  his  hand.  He  saluted  us 
with  his  usual  dignified  frankness,  for  in  his  undress  of  man- 
ner as  well  as  of  costume,  he  was  always  himself;  and,  after 
asking  us  both  to  sit,  and  sitting  down  himself,  he  commenced 
instantly  to  converse  on  the  subject  nearest  to  him  at  the 
moment.  He  had  been  recently  up  at  Loch  Awe,  for  he  loved, 
he  said,  to  "  see  the  spring  come  out  in  the  Highlands."  He 
had,  besides,  been  visiting  many  of  his  old  acquaintances  there, 
"  shepherds  and  parish  ministers;"  and  then  he  enlarged  on 
the  character  of  his  old  friend  Dr.  Maclntyre.  There  was  a 
full-length  picture  of  Wilson  when  a  boy  on  one  side  of  the 
room,  representing  him  as  standing  beside  a  favorite  horse, 
and,  sooth  to  say,  somewhat  "  shauchly"  he  seemed  in  his 
juvenile  form.  The  picture,  he  said,  had  been  taken  at  the 
especial  desire  of  his  mother,  and  the  terms  in  which  he  spoke 
of  her  were  honorable  to  both  parties.  He  then  launched  out 
on  literary  topics  in  his  usual  free  but  fiery  style.  He  spoke 
a  great  deal  about  De  Quincey,  and  with  profound  admiration. 
To  Coleridge  as  a  man,  his  feelings  were  less  cordial.  Alto- 
gether, we  left  deeply  impressed  with  his  affability  and  kindli- 
ness, as  well  as  with  his  great  mental  powers. 

We  met  him  bat  once  more,  at  Stirling,  on  occasion  of  a 
great  literary  conversazione,  held  in  that  town,  on  the  10th 
January,  1849.  His  coming  there  had  been  announcedi  but 
was  expected  by  no  one,  as  it  was  during  the  Session  of  Col- 


378  MISCELLANEOUS     SKETCHES. 


lege.  Thither,  however,  he  came,  like  a  splendid  meteor  and 
was  received  with  boundless  enthusiasm.  We  remember, 
while  walking  along  with  him  from  dinner  to  the  place  of 
meeting,  that  some  one  remarked  how  singular  it  was  (fact), 
"  that  Cholera  and  Christopher  North  had  entered  Stirling 
the  same  day."  "  And  I  the  author  of  the  '  City  of  the 
Plague,'  too,"  was  his  prompt  rejoinder.  Never  had  there 
been  such  a  night  in  Stirling,  nor  is  there  ever  likely  to  be  an- 
"other  such.  His  spirits  rose,  he  threw  his  soul  amidst  his  au- 
dience, like  a  strong  swimmer  in  a  full-lipped  sea,  touched  by 
turns  their  every  passion,  and  at  last,  by  the  simple  words, 
rendered  more  powerful  by  the  proximity  of  the  spot,  "  One 
bloody  summer-day  at  Bannockburn,"  raised  them  all  to  their 
feet  in  one  storm  of  uncontrollable  enthusiasm.  More  elab- 
orate prelections  from  his  lips  we  have  heard,  but  never  any- 
thing better  calculated  to  move  and  melt,  to  thrill  and  carry 
away,  and  that,  too,  without  an  atom  of  clap-trap,  a  popular 
assembly. 

We  have,  in  common  with  many,  seen  and  heard  him  in  va- 
rious other  of  his  moods.  We  have  seen  him  in  the  street,  or 
in  the  Parliament  House,  or  in  the  Exhibition,  surrounded 
three  deep  by  acquaintances,  male  and  female,  whom  he  was 
keeping  in  a  roar  of  laughter,  or  sometimes  hushing  into  a  lit- 
tle eddy  of  silence,  which  seemed  startling  amidst  the  torrent 
of  noisy  life  which  was  rushing  around.  We  have  watched 
him  followed  at  noonday,  through  long  streets,  by  enthusiasts 
and  strangers,  who  hung  upon  his  steps,  and  did  "  far  off  his 
skirts  adore,"  and  have  seen  him  monstrari  digito,  a  thousand 
times ;  sometimes  we  have  thus  followed,  and  thus  pointed  him 
out  ourselves.  And  we  have  heard  him  again  and  again  in 
the  Assembly  Rooms,  and  in  his  own  class-room,  addressing 
audiences,  whom  he  melted,  electrified,  subdued,  exploded  in- 
to mirth,  or  awed  into  solemnity,  at  his  pleasure,  while  he 
was  discovering  the  secret  springs  of  beauty  and  sublimity,  of 
delight  and  of  terror,  of  laughter  and  of  tears. 

In  1852  he  saw  the  necessity  of  resigning  his  chair,  owing 
to  the  increasing  weakness  of  his  frame.  A  pension  of  £200 
was  granted  him  by  Lord  John  Russell.  About  a  year  ago 
symptoms  of  decay  in  his  mental  faculties  are  said  to  have 
been  observed.  From  his  cottage  in  Lasswade  he  was  renio/ 


PROFESSOR.    WILSON.  379 


ed  to  Edinburgh,  and  after  various  fluctuations,  his  spirit 
was  at  last  mercifully  released  from  that  body  which  had  be- 
come a  "  body  of  death,"  at  twelve  ou  the  morning  of  Mon- 
day the  3d  April. 

We  come  now  to  the  second  part  of  our  task — to  speak  of 
him  critically  as  a  Man  and  an  Author.  And  in  looking  to 
him  as  a  Man,  we  are  compelled,  first,  to  think  of  that  mag- 
nificent presence  of  his  to  which  we  have  alluded  often,  and 
may  allude  yet  again,  which  ever  haunts  us,  and  all  who  have 
seen  it.  In  the  case  of  many  the  body  seems  to  belong  to  the 
mind  ;  in  the  case  of  Wilson,  the  mind  seemed  to  belong  to 
the  body.  You  were  almost  tempted  to  believe  in  materi- 
alism, as  you  saw  him,  so  intensely  did  the  body  seem  alive, 
so  much  did  it  appear  to  ray  out  meaning,  motion,  and  power, 
from  the  crown  of  the  head  to  the  sole  of  the  foot.  You 
thought,  at  other  times,  of  the  first  Adam — the  stately  man 
of  red  clay,  rising  from  the  hand  of  the  Almighty  Potter. 
Larger  and  taller  men  we  have  seen,  figures  more  artistically 
framed  we  have  seen,  faces  more  chastely  chiselled,  and  "  sick- 
lied o'er  with  the  pale  cast  of  thought,"  are  not  uncommon  ; 
but  the  power  and  peculiarity  of  Wilson's  body  lay  in  tho 
combination  of  all  those  qualities  which  go  to  form  a  model 
man.  There  was  his  stature,  about  six  feet  two  inches.  There 
were  his  erect  port  and  stately  tread.  There  was  his  broad 
and  brawny  chest.  There  was  a  brow — lofty,  round,  and 
broad.  There  were  his  eyes,  literally  flames  of  fire,  when 
roused.  There  were  a  nose,  mouth,  and  chin,  expressing,  by 
turns,  firmest  determination,  exquisite  feeling,  humor  of  the 
drollest  sort,  and  fiery  rage.  And  flowing  round  his  temples, 
but  not ('  beneath  his  shoulders  broad,"  were  locks  of  the  true 
Celtic  yellow,  reminding  you  of  the  mane  worn  by  the  ancient 
bison  in  the  Deu-Caledouian  forests.  "  You  are  a  man,"  said 
Napoleon,  when  he  first  saw  Goethe.  Similar  exclamations 
were  often  uttered  by  strangers,  as  they  unexpectedly  encoun- 
tered Wilson  in  the  streets.  Johnson  said  of  Burke,  that  you 
could  not  converse  with  him  for  five  minutes  under  a  shed  with- 
out saying,  "  this  is  an  extraordinai-y  man."  But  Burke  had  to 
open  his  mouth ;  his  presence  was  by  no  means  remarkable. 
In  Wilson's  case  there  was  no  need  for  uttering  a  single  word; 
his  face,  his  eye,  his  port,  his  chest,  all  united  in  silently  shin- 


380  MISCELLANEOUS    SKETCHES. 


ing  out  the  tidings  of  what  he  was — the  most  gifted,  and  one 
of  the  least  cultured  of  the  sons  of  men. 

"  Cultured,"  we  mean  in  the  ordinary  sense  of  that  word, 
for  unquestionably  he  had  received  or  given  himself  an  educa- 
tion as  extraordinary  as  was  his  genius.  Yet  there  was  a 
want  of  polish  and  finish  about  his  look,  his  hair,  his  dress, 
and  gesture,  that  seemed  outre  and  savage,  and  which  made 
some  hypercritics  talk  of  him  as  a  splendid  beast — a  cross  be- 
tween the  man,  the  eagle,  and  the  lion.  You  saw  at  least  one 
who  had  been  much  among  the  woods,  and  much  among  the 
wild  beasts,  who,  like  Peter  Bell,  had  often 

"Set  his  face  against  the  sky, 
On  mountains  and  on  lonely  moors," 

who  had  slept  for  nights  among  the  heather,  who  had  bathed 
in  midnight  lakes,  and  shouted  from  the  top  of  midnight  hills, 
and  robbed  eagles'  eyries,  and  made  snow-men,  and  wooed  sol- 
itude as  a  bride ;  and  yet,  withal,  there  was  something  in  his 
bearing  which  showed  the  scholar,  the  gentleman,  the  man  of 
the  world,  and  the  waggish  observer ;  and  if  one  presumed  on 
his  oddity,  and  sought  to  treat  him  as  a  simpleton,  or  semi- 
maniac,  he  could  resent  the  presumption  by  throwing  at  him 
a  word  which  withered  him  to  the  bone,  or  darting  at  him  a 
glance  which  shrivelled  him  up  into  remorse  and  insignificance. 
His  eye  was  indeed  a  most  singular  eye.  Now  it  glittered 
like  a  sharp  sunlit  sword ;  now  it  assumed  a  dewy  expression 
of  the  slyest  humor ;  now  it  swam  in  tears ;  now  it  became 
dim  and  deep  under  some  vision  of  grandeur  which  had  come 
across  it ;  now  it  seemed  searching  every  heart  among  his  hear- 
ers ;  and  now  it  appeared  to  retire  and  communicate  directly 
with  his  own.  And  wo  to  those  against  whom  it  did  rouse  in 
anger  !  It  was  then  Coeur  De  Leon  in  the  "  Talisman,"  with 
his  hand  and  foot  advanced  to  defend  the  insulted  banner  of 
England. 

Indeed,  we  marvel  that  no  critic  hitherto  has  noticed  the 
striking  similitude  between  Wilson,  and  Scott's  portraiture 
of  Richard  the  Lion-hearted.  We  are  almost  inclined  to 
think  that  Sir  Walter  had  him  in  his  eye.  Many  of  their 
qualities  were  the  same.  The  same  leonine  courage  and  no- 
bility of  nature ;  the  same  fierce  and  ungovernable  passions ; 


PROFESSOR    WILSON.  381 


the  same  high  and  generous  temper  ;  the  same  love  of  adven- 
ture and  frolic ;  the  same  taste  for  bouts  of  pleasure  and 
lowly  society ;  the  same  love  of  song  and  music ;  the  same  im- 
prudence and  improvidence ;  the  same  power  of  concentrating 
the  passions  of  hot  hearts  and  amorous  inclinations  upon  their 
wives ;  and  the  same  personal  appearance  to  the  very  letter — 
in  complexion,  strength,  and  stature — distinguish  the  King 
and  the  Poet.  Neither  Richard  nor  Christopher  was  always 
a  hero.  The  former  enjoyed  the  humors  of  Friar  Tuck  as 
heartily  as  he  did  the  minstrelsy  of  Blondel ;  and  our  lion- 
hearted  Laker  could  be  as  much  at  home  among  peasants  and 
smugglers,  as  he  ever  was  with  Wordsworth  and  Coleridge. 

We  have  often  heard  Americans  preferring  the  personal 
presence  of  Daniel  Webster  to  that  of  Wilson.  Webster  we 
never  saw,  but,  from  descriptions  and  portraits,  we  have  him 
somewhat  clearly  before  our  mind's  eye.  He  was  in  appear- 
ance a  tall,  solemn,  swarthy,  thundrous-looking  Puritan  cler- 
gyman, clad  always  in  black,  not  unlike  James  Grahame  of 
the  "  Sabbath,"  Wilson's  friend,  but  with  a  prodigiously  more 
powerful  expression  on  the  eye  and  brow.  He  looked,  in 
short,  morally  the  very  reverse  of  what  he  was  ;  he  seemed 
the  model  of  a  high-principled  and  conscientious  man.  Wil- 
son's face  and  form  were  equally  massive,  far  sunnier  and  far 
truer  to  his  genial  and  unlimited  nature. 

As  a  man,  Wilson  was  much  misunderstood.  Not  only 
were  his  personal  habits  grossly  misrepresented,  but  his  whole 
nature  was  belied.  He  was  set  down  by  many  as  a  strange 
compound  of  wilful  oddity,  boisterous  spirits,  swaggering  os- 
tentation, and*  true  genius.  Let  us  hear,  on  the  other  side, 
one  who  knew  him  intimately,  and  loved  him  as  a  son  a  father 
— our  friend  Thomas  Aird.  His  words  written  since  Wilson's 
decease,  are  identical  with  all  his  private  statements  to  us  on 
the  same  subject : — "  He  was  singularly  modest,  and  even  de- 
ferential. His  estimates  of  life  were  severely  practical;  he 
was  not  sanguine ;  he  was  not  even  hopeful  enough.  Those 
who  approached  the  author  of  the  '  Noctes'  in  domestic  life, 
expecting  exchanges  of  boisterous  glee,  soon  found  out  their 
mistake.  No  writing  for  mere  money,  no  '  dabbling  in  the 
pettiness  of  fame,'  with  this  great  spirit,  in  its  own  negligent 
grandeur,  modest,  quiet,  negligent,  because,  amidst  all  the 


382  MISCELLANEOUS    SKETCHES. 


beauty  and  joy  of  the  world,  it  stood  waiting  an.i  wondering 
on  vaster  shores  than  lie  by  the  seas  of  time." 

These  words  are  not  only  beautiful,  but  true,  although  they 
represent  Wilson  only  in  his  higher  moods.  He  could,  and 
often  did,  indulge  in  boisterous  glee,  while,  like  many  humor- 
ists, his  heart  within,  was  serious,  if  not  sad  enough.  And  this 
leads  us  to  the  question  as  to  his  faith — what  was  it  ?  He 
was  unquestionably  of  a  deeply  religious  temperament;  but  he 
had  not  given  it  a  proper  culture.  He  was  not,  we  think,  sat- 
isfied with  any  of  the  present  forms  of  the  Christian  religion ; 
yet  there  was  something  in  him  far  beyond  nature-worship.  His 
attitude  indeed,  was  just  that  described  by  Aird.  Like  the  spi- 
rits of  Foster,  Coleridge,  Arnold,  and  many  others  in  our 
strange  era,  while  accepting  Christianity  as  a  whole,  Wilson's 
spirit  was  "  waiting  and  wondering"  till  the  mighty  veil 
should  drop,  and  show  all  mysteries  made  plain  in  the  light 
of  another  sphere.  Had  he  more  resolutely  lived  the  Chris- 
tian life  in  its  energetic  activities,  and  approved  himself 
more  a  servant  of  duty,  his  views  had  perhaps  become  clearer 
and  more  consoling.  And  yet,  what  can  we  say  ?  Arnold 
was  a  high  heroic  worker,  nay,  seemed  a  humble,  devoted 
Christian,  and  yet  died  with  a  heart  broken  by  the  uncertain- 
ties of  this  transition  and  twilight  age. 

Many  thought  and  called  Wilson  a  careless,  neglectful  man. 
He  was  not  indeed  so  punctual  as  the  Iron  Duke  in  answering 
letters,  nor  could  he  be  always  "fashed"  with  young  aspi- 
rants. But  this  arose  more  from  indolence  than  from  indif- 
ference. He  was  to  many  men  a  generous  and  constant  friend 
and  patron.  Few  have  had  encouraging  letters  from  him,  but 
many  have  had  cheering  words,  and  a  word  from  him  went  as 
far  as  a  letter,  or  many  letters  from  others. 

We  pass  to  speak  of  the  constituents  of  his  genius.  These 
were  distinguished  by  their  prodigal  abundance  and  variety. 
He  was  what  the  Germans  call  an  "  all-sided  man."  He  had, 
contrary  to  common  opinion,  much  metaphysical  subtlety, 
which  had  not  indeed  been  subjected,  any  more  than  some  of 
his  other  faculties,  to  careful  cultivation.  But  none  can  read 
some  of  his  articles,  or  could  have  listened  to  many  of  his  lec- 
tures, without  the  conviction  that  the  metaphysical  power  was 
strong  within  him,  and  that,  had  he  not  by  instinct  been 


PROFESSOR    WILSON.  383 


taught  to  despise  metaphysics,  he  might  havo  become  a  met- 
aphysician, as  universally  wise,  as  elaborately  ingenious,  as 
captiously  critical,  as  wilfully  novel,  and  as  plausibly  and  pro- 
foundly wrong,  as  any  of  the  same  class  that  ever  lived.  But 
he  did  despise  this  science  of  pretensions,  and  used  to  call  it 
"  dry  as  the  dust  of  summer."  Of  his  imagination  we  need 
not  speak.  It  was  large,  rich,  ungovernable,  fond  alike  of 
the  Beautiful  and  the  Sublime,  of  the  Pathetic  and  the  Ter- 
rible. His  wit  was  less  remarkable  than  his  humor,  which 
was  one  of  the  most  lavish  and  piquant  of  his  faculties.  Add 
to  this  great  memory,  keen,  sharp  intellect,  wide  sympathies, 
strong  passion,  and  a  boundless  command  of  a  somewhat  loose, 
but  musical  and  energetic  diction,  and  you  have  the  outline  of 
his  gifts  and  endowments.  He  was  deficient  only  in  that 
plodding,  painstaking  sagacity  which  enables  many  common- 
place men  to  excel  in  the  physical  sciences.  If  he  ever  cross- 
ed the  "  Ass'  Bridge,"  it  must  have  been  at  a  flying  leap,  and 
with  recalcitrating  heels,  and  he  was  much  better  acquainted, 
we  suspect,  with  the  "  Fluxions"  of  the  Tweed,  than  with 
those  of  Leibnitz  and  Newton. 

His  powers  have  never,  we  think,  found  an  adequate  devel- 
opment. It  is  only  the  bust  of  Wilson  we  have  before  us. 
Yet  let  us  not,  because  he  has  not  done  mightier  things,  call 
his  achievements  small ;  they  are  not  only  very  considerable  in 
themselves,  but  of  a  very  diversified  character.  He  was  a 
critic,  humorist,  writer  of  fiction,  professor,  poet,  and  periodi- 
cal writer.  And,  first,  as  a  critic,  criticism  with  him  was  not 
an  art  or  an  attainment;  it  was  an  insight  and  an  enthusiasm, 
He  loved  everything  that  was  beautiful  in  literature,  and  ab- 
horred all  that  was  false  and  affected,  and  pitied  all  that  was 
weak  and  dull;  and  his  criticism  was  just  the  frank,  fearless, 
and  eloquent  expression  of  that  love,  that  abhorrence,  and  that 
pity.  Hence  his  was  a  catholic  criticism;  hence  his  canons 
were  not  artificial ;  hence  he  abhorred  the  formal,  the  mysti- 
cal, and  the  pseudo-philosophic  schools  of  criticism  ;  hence  the 
reasons  he  gave  for  his  verdicts  were  drawn,  not  from  arbitra- 
ry rules,  but  directly  from  the  great  principles  of  human  na- 
ture. With  what  joyous  gusto  did  he  approach  a  favorite 
author !  His  praise  fell  on  books  like  autumn  sunshine,  and 
whatever  it  touched  it  gilded  and  glorified.  And  when,  on 


384  MISCELLANEOUS    SKETCHES. 


the  other  hand,  he  was  disgusted  or  offended,  with  what  vehe- 
ment sincerity,  with  what  a  noble  rage,  with  what  withering 
sarcasm,  or  with  what  tumultuous  invective,  did  he  express 
his  wrath.  His  criticisms  are  sometimes  rambling,  sometimes 
rhapsodical,  sometimes  overdone  in  praise  or  in  blame  ;  often 
you  are  compelled  to  differ  from  his  opinions,  and  sometimes 
to  doubt  if  they  are  fully  formed  in  his  own  mind,  and  in  pol- 
ish, precision,  and  depth,  they  are  inferior  to  a  few  others ; 
but,  in  heartiness,  eloquence,  variety,  consummate  ease  of  mo- 
tion, native  insight,  and  sincerity,  they  stand  alone. 

We  have  alluded  to  his  extraordinary  gift  of  humor.  It 
was  not  masked  and  subtle,  like  Lamb's ;  it  was  broad,  rich, 
bordering  on  farce,  and  strongly  impregnated  with  imagina- 
tion. It  was  this  last  characteristic  which  gave  it  its  peculiar 
power,  as  Patrick  Robertson  can  testify.  This  gentleman 
possesses  nearly  as  much  fun  as  Wilson,  but  in  their  conversa- 
tional contests,  Wilson,  whenever  he  lifted  up  the  daring  wing 
of  imagination,  left  him  floundering  far  behind. 

Good  old  Dr.  Maclntyre,  we  have  seen,  thought  Wilson's 
forte  was  fiction.  We  can  hardly  concur  with  the  doctor 
in  this  opinion,  for  although  many  of  his  tales  are  fine,  they 
are  so  principally  from  the  poetry  of  the  descriptions  which 
are  sprinkled  through  them.  He  does  not  tell  a  story  well, 
and  this  because  he  is  not  calm  enough.  As  Cowper  says,  he 
prefers  John  Newton,  as  a  historian,  to  Gibbon  and  Robert- 
son ;  because,  while  they  sing,  you  say  your  story ;  and  his- 
tory is  a  thing  to  be  said,  not  sung.  Before  we  met  this  re- 
mark, we  had  made  it  in  reference  to  Wilson  and  Scott. 
Scott  says  his  stories,  and  Wilson  sings  them.  Hence,  while 
Wilson  in  passages  is  equal  to  Scott,  as  a  whole,  his  works  of 
fiction  are  greatly  less  interesting,  and  seem  less  natural. 
Wilson  is  a  northern  Scald,  not  so  much  narrating  as  pouring 
out  passionate  poetic  rhapsodies,  thinly  threaded  with  inci- 
dent ;  Scott  is  a  Minstrel  of  the  border,  who  can  be  poetical 
when  he  pleases,  but  who  lays  more  stress  upon  the  general 
interest  of  the  tale  he  tells.  Even  in  description  he  is  not, 
in  general,  equal  to  Scott,  and  that  for  a  similar  reason.  Wil- 
son, when  describing,  rises  out  of  the  sphere  of  prose  into  a 
kind  of  poetic  rhythm ;  Scott  never  goes  beyond  the  line  which 
separates  the  style  of  lofty  prose  from  that  of  absolute  poe- 


PK.OFESSOR    WILSON.  385 


try.  Wilson  is  too  Ossianic  in  his  style  of  narration  and 
description ;  and  had  he  attempted  a  novel  in  three  or  four 
volumes,  it  had  been  absolutely  illegible.  Even  "  Margaret 
Lindsay,"  his  longest  tale,  rather  tires  before  the  close, 
through  its  sameness  of  eloquence  and  monotony  of  pathos ; 
only  very  short  letters  should  be  all  written  in  tears  and 
blood.  And  his  alternations  of  gay  and  grave  are  not  so  well 
managed  in  his  tales  as  in  his  "  Noctes."  Yet  nothing  can  be 
fiuer  than  some  of  his  individual  scenes  and  pictures.  Who 
has  forgotten  his  Scottish  Sunset,  which  seems  dipped  in  fiery 
gold,  or  that  Rainbow  which  bridges  over  one  of  his  most  pa- 
thetic stories,  or  the  drowning  of  Henry  Needhani,  or  the 
Elder's  Death-bed,  or  that  incomparable  Thunderstorm,  which 
seems  still  to  bow  its  giant  wing  of  gloom  over  Ben  Nevis 
and  the  glen  below  ?  In  no  modern,  not  even  Scott,  do  we 
find  prose  passages  so  gorgeous,  so  filled  with  the  intensest 
spirit  of  poetry,  and  rising  so  finely-  into  its  language  and 
rhythm  as  these. 

We  have  of  late  frequently  applied,  to  apparently  fine  prose 
writing,  the  test  of  reading  it  aloud,  and  have  judged  accord- 
ingly of  its  rhythm,  as  well  as  of  its  earnestness  and  power. 
Few  authors,  indeed,  can  stand  this.  MacAll  of  Manchester's 
high-wrought  paragraphs  seem  miserably  verbose  and  empty 
when  read  aloud ;  Hamilton  of  Leeds'  sentences  are  too  short 
and  disjointed  to  stand  this  test ;  and  even  Ruskin's  most 
sounding  and  labored  passages  assume  an  aspect  of  splendid 
disease,  of  forced  and  factitious  enthusiasm,  when  thus  tried. 
All  the  better  passages,  on  the  other  hand,  of  Hall,  Chalmers, 
Foster,  Scott,  Croly,  De  Quincey,  and,  we  add,  of  Macaulay, 
triumphantly  pass  the  ordeal ;  and  so,  too,  the  descriptions  in 
the  "Lights  and  Shadows  of  Scottish  Life." 

"  Come  back  into  memory,  thou  most  brilliant  and  genial  of 
all  professors,  as  we  have  seen  thee  in  the  days  of  other  years !" 
We  enter  the  class-room,  and  take,  we  shall  suppose,  the  most 
remote  seat  in  the  sloping  array  of  benches.  We  find  our- 
selves surrounded  by  youths  of  all  varieties  of  appearance  and 
diversities  of  standing,  waiting,  some  eagerly,  others  with  an 
air  of  perfect  indifference,  for  the  entrance  of  the  professor. 
Yonder  two  are  discussing  the  question  whether  Wilson  be  a 
real  Christian,  or  a  true  poet.  One  is  preparing  his  pencil  for 


386  MISCELLANEOUS    SKETCHES. 


making  a  caricature  of  his  illustrious  teacher  another  is 
mending  his  pen  for  the  purpose  of  taking  down  notes  of  the 
lecture.  A  few  are  knocking  their  heels  against  the  ground, 
because  the  morning  is  cold,  and,  perhaps,  in  a  loud  whisper 
discussing  the  merits  of  the  leading  "  star"  in  the  Royal  The- 
atre, where  they  had  been  over  night.  Here  and  there  you 
see  strangers — some  enthusiastic  youths  from  England,  or 
some  clerical-looking  gentlemen  from  the  north  of  Scotland — 
whose  fidgetty  air  tells  you  they  are  wearying  for  the  appear- 
ance of  the  lion,  and  who  seem  regarding  his  class  with  feel- 
ings of  unmixed  contempt.  At  last  you  hear  a  certain  bustle, 
and  immediately  after,  there  comes  rushing  along  from  the 
left-hand  side  a  tall,  yellow-haired  man,  in  a  gown,  who  steps 
up  to  the  platform,  and  turns  toward  you  eyes,  a  brow,  a 
cheek,  a  chin,  a  chest,  and  a  port,  which  instantly  stamp  him 
a  Titan  among  the  children  of  men.  His  hair  rolls  down  his 
temples  like  a  cataract  of  gold ;  his  eyes  are  light-blue,  spark- 
ling, and  at  times  so  fierce,  that  they  seem  two  loopholes  open- 
ing into  a  brain  of  fire ;  his  cheek  is  flushed  by  exercise  and 
air  into  a  rich  manly  red ;  his  chin  is  cut  like  that  of  a 
marble  Antinous;  his  chest  is  broad  and  ample,  and  seems 
ready  either  as  a  bulwark  to  break,  or  as  a  floodgate  to  let 
forth  strong  emotion  ;  his  lips  are  firmly  set,  yet  mild ;  the 
aspect  of  the  lower  face  is  that  of  peach-like  bloom,  and 
peach-like  peace,  the  aspect  of  the  upper  is  that  of  high,  rapt 
enthusiasm,  like  that  of  Apollo,  looking  up  after  the  path  of 
one  of  his  sunny  arrows  ;  the  port  is  erect — yet  not  haughty 
— high,  yet  not  overbearing  or  contemptuous — and,  ere  he  has 
opened  his  lips,  you  say  internally,  "  I  have  found  a  man  of 
the  old  heroic  breed,  strength  and  stature."  He  begins  his 
lecture.  For  a  little  you  are  disappointed.  His  voice  is 
deep,  but  seems  monotonous ;  his  utterance  is  slow ;  his  pro- 
nunciation is  peculiar ;  his  gesture  uncouth ;  what  he  says, 
is  a  rather  confused  and  embarrassed  repetition  of  a  past  lec- 
ture ;  and  you  are  resigning  yourself  to  a  mere  passive  and 
wondering  gaze  at  the  personnel  of  the  man,  expecting  nothing 
from  his  mouth,  when  the  progress  of  his  discussion  compels 
him  to  quote  a  few  lines  of  poetry,  and  then  his  enthusiasm 
appears,  not  rapidly  bursting,  but  slowly  defiling  like  a  great 
army  into  view,  his  eye  kindles,  enlarges,  and  seems  to  embrace 


PROFESSOR    WILSON.  387 


the  whole  of  his  audience  in  one  glance,  his  chest,  heaves,  his 
arms  vibrate,  sometimes  his  clenched  hand  smites  the  desk 
before  him,  and  his  tones  deepen  and  deepen  down  into  abysses 
of  pathos  and  melody,  as  if  searching  for  the  very  soul  of  sound, 
to  bring  it  into  upper  air.  And,  after  thus  having  arrested 
you,  he  never  for  an  instant  loses  his  grasp,  but,  by  successive 
shock  after  shock  of  electric  power,  roll  after  roll  of  slow 
thunder,  he  does  with  you  what  he  wills,  as  with  his  own,  and 
leaves  you  in  precisely  the  state  in  which  you  feel  yourself 
when  awakening  from  some  deep,  delightful  dream.  He  had, 
besides,  certain  great  field-days,  as  a  lecturer,  in  which,  from 
beginning  to  end,  he  spoke  with  sustained  and  accelerating 
power :  as  when  he  advocated  the  Immortality  of  the  Soul ; 
describing  the  sufferings  of  Indian  prisoners;  explained  his 
ideas  of  the  Beautiful ;  or  described  the  character  of  the 
Miser.  The  initiated  among  the  students  used  to  watch  and 
weary  for  these  grand  occasions,  and  all  who  heard  him  then, 
felt  that  genius  and  eloquence  could  go  no  further,  and  that 
they  were  standing  beside  him  on  the  pinnacle  of  intellectual 
power. 

His  poetry  proper  has  been  generally  thought  inferior  to  his 
prose,  and  beneath  the  level  of  his  powers.  Yet,  if  we  admire 
it  less,  we  at  times  we  love  it  more.  It  is  not  great,  or  intense, 
or  highly  impassioned,  but  it  is  true,  tender,  and  pastoral.  It 
has  been  well  called  the  "  poetry  of  peace  ;"  it  is  from  "  towns 
and  toils  remote."  In  it  the  author  seems  to  be  exiled  from 
the  bustle  and  conflict  of  the  world,  and  to  inhabit  a  country 
of  his  own,  not  an  entirely  "  Happy  Valley,"  for  tears  there 
fall,  and  clouds  gather,  and  hearts  break,  and  death  enters,  but 
the  tears  are  quiet,  the  clouds  are  windless,  the  hearts  break  in 
silence,  and  the  awful  Shadow  comes  in  softly,  and  on  tiptoe 
departs.  Sometimes,  indeed,  the  solitude  and  silence  are  dis- 
turbed by  the  apparition  of  a  "  wild  deer,"  and  the  poet  is 
surprised  into  momentary  rapture,  and  a  stormy  lyric  is  flung 
abroad  on  the  winds.  But,  in  general,  the  region  is  calm,  and 
the  very  sounds  are  all  in  unison  and  league  with  silence.  As  a 
poet,  however,  Wilson  was  deficient,  far  more  than  as  a  prose 
writer,  in  objective  interest,  as  well  as  in  concentration  of  pur- 
pose. His  poetry  has  neither  that  reflective  depth  which 
causes  you  to  recur  so  frequently  to  the  poetry  of  Wordsworth, 


388  MISCELLANEOUS    SKETCHES. 


nor  that  dazzling  lightness  and  brilliance  of  movement  which 
fascinates  you  in  Scott.  It  is  far,  too,  from  being  a  full  reflec- 
tion of  his  multifarious  and  powerful  nature ;  it  represents 
only  a  little  quiet  nook  in  his  heart,  a  small  sweet  vein  in  his 
genius,  as  though  a  lion  were  to  carry  somewhere  within  his 
broad  breast  a  little  bag  of  honey,  like  that  of  the  bee.  It 
does  not  discover  him  as  he  is,  but  as  he  would  wish  to  have 
been.  His  poetry  is  the  Sabbath  of  his  soul.  And  there  are 
moods  of  mind — quiet,  peaceful,  autumnal  moments — in  which 
you  enjoy  it  better  than  the  poetry  of  any  one  else,  and  find  a 
metaphor  for  its  calm  and  holy  charm  in  the  words  of  Cole- 
ridge— 

"  The  moonbeams  steeped  in  sikntness, 
The  steady  weathercock." 

The  revolving,  impatient  wheel,  the  boundless  versatility  of 
Wilson's  genius,  quieted  and  at  rest,  as  we  see  it  in  his  poetry, 
could  not  be  better  represented  than  in  these  lines.  In  Cole- 
ridge, indeed,  as  in  some  true  poets,  we  find  all  characters  and 
varieties  of  intellect  represented  unconsciously  and  by  antici- 
pation, even  as  frost,  fire,  and  rock-work — each  contains  all 
architecture  and  all  art,  silently  anticipated  in  its  varied  forms 
and  prophetic  imitations. 

In  his  periodical  writings  alone  do  we  find  anything  like  an 
adequate  display  of  his  varied  powers.  You  saw  only  the 
half-man  in  the  professor's  chair,  and  only  the  quarter-man  in 
his  poetry ;  but  in  the  "  Noctes,"  and  the  satirico-serious 
papers  he  scattered  over  "  Blackwood,"  you  saw  the  whole 
Wilson — the  Cyclops  now  at  play,  and  now  manufacturing 
thunderbolts  for  Jove;  now  cachinnating  in  his  cave,  now 
Mirowing  rocks  and  mountains  at  his  enemies,  and  now  pour- 
ing out  awful  complaints,  and  asking  strange,  yet  reverent 
queries  in  the  ear  of  the  gods. 

Wilson's  relation  to  his  age  has  been,  like  Byron's,  some- 
what uncertain  and  vacillating.  He  has  been,  on  the  whole,  a 
"  lost  leader."  He  has,  properly  speaking,  belonged  neither 
to  the  old  nor  new,  neither  to  the  conservative  nor  to  the 
movement,  neither  to  the  infidel  nor  the  evangelical  sides 
Indeed,  our  grand  quarrel  with  him  is,  that  he  was  not  sum 
ciently  in  earnest ;  that  he  did  not  with  his  might  what  his 


PROFESSOR    WILSON.  389 


hand  found  to  do ;  that  he  hid  his  ten  talents  in  a  napkin ; 
that  he  trifled  with  his  inestimable  powers,  and  had  not  a 
sufficiently  strong  sense  of  stewardship  on  his  conscience. 
This  has  been  often  said,  and  we  thought  it  generally  agreed 
on,  till  our  attention  was  turned  to  a  pamphlet,  entitled 
"  Professor  Wilson — a  Memorial  and  Estimate,"  which,  amid 
tolerably  good  points  and  thoughts  here  and  there,  is  written 
in  a  style  which,  for  looseness,  inaccuracy,  verbosity,  and 
affected  obscurity,  baffles  description,  besides  abounding  in 
flagrant  and,  we  fear,  wilful  mis-statements,  and  in  efforts  at 
fine  writing,  which  make  you  blush  for  Scottish  literature. 
The  poor  creature  who  indites  this  farrago  of  pretentious  non- 
sense asserts  that  the  "  Life  of  Wilson  seems  to  have  been  as 
truly  fruitful  as  that  of  any  author  within  the  range  of  Eng- 
lish literature,"  and  proves  the  statement  by  the  following 
portentous  query  : — "  That  ivild  air  of  the  unexpressed  poet, 
the  inglorious  Milton,  the  Shakspeare  that  might  have  been, 
what  was  it  but  a  rich  spice  of  the  fantastic  humor  of  the 
man,  a  part  of  that  extraordinary  character  which  so  delighted 
in  its  sport,  that,  whether  he  jested  on  himself,  or  from  behind 
a  mask  might  be  making  some  play  of  you,  you  knew  not,  nor 
were  sure  if  it  meant  mirth,  confidence,  or  a  solemn  earnest 
such  as  lie  only  could  appreciate  ?"  What  this  may  mean  we 
cannot  tell ;  but  the  writer  becomes  a  little  more  intelligible 
when  he  speaks,  in  some  later  portion  of  his  production,  of 
the  great  popularity  which  Wilson's  redacted  and  collected 
works  are  to  obtain,  not  appearing  to  know  the  fact  that  the 
"  Recreations  of  Christopher  North,"  published  some  twelve 
years  ago,  have  never  reached  a  second  edition,  and  that  old 
William  Blackwood,  one  of  the  acutest  bibliopoles  that  ever 
lived,  refused  to  republish  Wilson's  principal  articles  in 
''  Maga;"  nor  did  the  "  Recreations"  appear  till  after  Black- 
wood's  death.  Splendid  passages  and  inestimable  thoughts, 
of  course,  abound  in  all  that  Wilson  wrote,  but  the  want  of 
pervasive  purpose,  of  genuine  artistic  instinct,  of  condensation, 
and  of  finish,  has  denied  true  unity,  and  perhaps  permanent 
power,  to  his  writings.  He  will  probably  be  best  remembered 
for  his  "  Lights  and  Shadows" — a  book  which,  although  not 
a  full  discovery  of  his  powers,  lies  in  portable  compass,  and 
embalms  that  fine  nationality  which  so  peculiarly  distinguished 


390  MISCELLANEOUS     SKETCHES. 


his  genius.     Probably  a  wise  selection  from  his  "  Noctes," 
too,  might  become  a  popular  book. 

Wilson  had  every  inducement  to  have  done  more  than  he 
did.  He  was  a  strong  healthy  nature ;  he  had  much  leisure  ; 
he  had  great,  perhaps  too  great  facility  of  expression.  He 
was  the  pet  of  the  public  for  many  years.  But  he  did  not, 
alas  !  live  habitually  in  his  "  great  Taskmaster's  eye."  We 
quarrel  not  with  his  unhappy  uncertainties  of  mind;  they 
are  but  too  incident  to  all  imaginative  and  thoughtful  spirits. 
We  quarrel  not  with  his  "  waiting  and  wondering"  on  the 
brink  of  the  unseen,  but  his  uncertainty  should  not  have  para- 
lysed and  emasculated  a  man  of  his  gigantic  proportions.  If 
beset  by  doubts  and  demons,  he  ought  to  have  tried  at  least 
to  fight  his  way  through  them,  as  many  a  resolute  spirit  has 
done  before  him.  What  had  he  to  endure  compared  to  Cow- 
per,  who  for  many  years  imagined  that  a  being  mightier  than 
the  fallen  angels — Ahrimanes  himself — held  him  as  his  pro- 
perty, and  yet  who,  under  the  pressure  of  this  fearful  delusion, 
wrote  and  did  his  best,  and  has  left  some  works  which,  while 
satisfying  the  severest  critics,  are  manuals  and  household 
words  everywhere  ?  Wilson,  on  the  other  hand,  seldom  wrote 
anything  except  from  the  compulsion  of  necessity.  Although 
not  a  writer  for  bread,  much  of  his  writing  arose  to  the  tune 
of  the  knock  of  the  printer's  "  devil;"  and  his  efforts  for  the 
advancement  of  the  race,  although  we  believe  really  sincere, 
were  to  the  last  degree  fluctuating,  irregular,  and  uncertain. 

It  is  a  proof,  we  think,  of  Wilson's  weakness,  as  well  as  of 
his  power,  that  he  has  been  claimed  as  a  possible  prize  on  so 
many  and  such  diverse  sides.  He  might  have  been,  says  one, 
the  greatest  preacher  of  the  age.  He  might  have  been,  says 
another,  the  greatest  actor  of  the  day.  He  might  have  been, 
says  a  third,  the  greatest  dramatist,  next  to  Shakspeare,  that 
ever  lived.  He  might  have  been,  says  a  fourth,  a  powerful 
parliamentary  orator.  He  might  have  been,  says  a  fifth,  a 
traveller  superior  to  Bruce  or  Park.  Now,  while  this  proves 
the  estimation  in  which  men  hold  his  vast  versatility,  it  proves 
also  that  there  was  something  wrong  and  shattered  in  the 
structure  of  a  mind  which,  while  presenting  so  many  angles  to 
BO  many  objects,  never  fully  embraced  any  of  them,  and  while 
displaying  powers  so  universal,  has  left  results  so  compara- 
tively slender. 


HENRY    ROGERS.  391 


Nevertheless,  after  all  these  deductions,  where  shall  we 
look  for  his  like  again  ?  A  more  generous,  a  more  wide- 
minded,  a  more  courteous,  and  a  more  gifted  man,  probably 
never  lived.  By  nature  he  was  Scotland's  brightest  son,  not, 
perhaps,  even  excepting  Burns;  and  he,  Scott,  and  Burns, 
must  rank  everlastingly  together  as  the  first  Three  of  her  men 
of  genius.  A  cheerless  feeling  of  desolation  creeps  across  us, 
as  we  remember — that  majestic  form  shall  press  this  earth  no 
more ;  those  eyes  of  fire  shall  sound  human  hearts  no  more ; 
that  voice,  mellow  as  that  of  the  summer  ocean  breaking  on  a 
silver  strand,  shall  swell  and  sink  no  more ;  and  that  large 
heart  shall  no  more  mirror  nature  and  humanity  on  its  stormy 
yet  sunlit  surface.  Yet  long  shall  Scotland,  ay,  and  the  world, 
continue  to  cherish  his  image  and  to  bless  his  memory ;  and 
whether  or  not  he  obtain  a  splendid  mausoleum,  he  will  not 
require  it,  for  he  can  (we  heard  him  once  quote  the  words  in 
reference  to  Scott,  as  he  only  could  quote  them) 

"  A  mightier  monument  command — 
The  mountains  of  his  native  land." 


NO.  IX.-IIEMY  ROGERS. 

MR.  ROGERS  has  only  risen  of  late  into  universal  reputation, 
although  he  had  long  ago  deserved  it.  It  has  fared  with  him 
as  with  some  others  who  had  for  many  years  enjoyed  a  dubious 
and  struggling,  although  real  and  rising  fame,  till  some  signal 
hit,  some  "  Song  of  the  Shirt,"  or  "  Eclipse  of  Faith,"  intro- 
duced their  names  to  millions  who  never  heard  of  them  before, 
and  turned  suddenly  on  their  half-shadowed  faces  the  broadest 
glare  of  fame.  Thus,  thousands  upon  thousands  who  had 
never  heard  of  Hood's  "  Progress  of  Cant,"  or  his  "  Comic 
Annuals,"  so  soon  as  they  read  the  "  Song  of  the  Shirt," 
inquired  eagerly  for  him,  and  began  to  read  his  earlier  works 
And  so,  although  literary  men  were  aware  of  Mr.  Rogers' 
existence,  and  that  he  was  an  able  contributor  to  the  "  Edin- 


392  MISCELLANEOUS   SKETCHES. 


burgh  Review,"  the  general  public  kuew  not  even  his  name 
till  the  "  Eclipse  of  Faith"  appeared,  and  till  its  great  popu- 
larity excited  a  desire  to  become  acquainted  with  his  previous 
lucubrations.  We  met  with  the  "  Eclipse  of  Faith"  at  its 
first  appearance,  but  have  only  newly  risen  from  reading  his 
collected  articles,  and  propose  to  record  our  impressions  while 
they  are  yet  fresh  and  warm. 

Henry  Rogers,  as  a  reviewer  and  writer,  seems  to  think 
that  he  belongs  to  the  school  of  Jeffrey  and  Macaulay,  although 
possessed  of  more  learning  and  imagination  than  either,  of  a 
higher  moral  sense  i\nd  manlier  power  than  the  first,  and  of  a 
freer  diction  and  an  easier  vein  of  wit  than  the  seco'ad ;  and 
the  style  of  deference  and  idolatry  he  uses  to  them  and  to  Mac- 
intosh, might  almost  to  his  detractors  appear  either  shameful 
from  its  hypocrisy,  ludicrous  from  its  affectation,  or  silly  from 
the  ignorance  it  discovers  of  his  own  claims  and  comparative 
merits.  We  defy  any  unprejudiced  man  to  read  the  two  vol- 
umes he  has  reprinted  from  the  "  Edinburgh  Review,"  and  not 
to  feel  that  be  has  encountered,  on  the  whole,  the  most  accom- 
plished, manliest,  healthiest,  and  most  Christian  writer  who 
ever  adorned  that  celebrated  periodical.  If  he  has  contribut- 
ed to  its  pages  no  one  article  equal  in  brilliance  to  Jeffrey's 
papers  on  Alison  and  Swift,  or  to  Macaulay's  papers  on  Milton 
and  Warren  Hastings,  his  papers,  taken  en  masse,  are  more 
natural,  less  labored,  full  of  a  richer  and  more  recondite  learn- 
ing, and  written  in  a  more  conversational,  more  vigorous,  and 
more  thoroughly  English  style.  His  thought,  too,  is  of  a  pro- 
founder,  and,  at  the  same  time,  clearer  cast.  Jeffrey  had  the 
subtlety  of  the  lawyer,  rather  than  the  depth  of  the  philoso- 
pher. Macaulay  thinks  generally  like  an  eloquent  special 
pleader.  Henry  Rogers  is  a  candid,  powerful,  and  all-sided 
thinker,  and  one  who  has  fed  his  thought  by  a  culture  as  diver- 
sified as  it  is  deep.  He  is  a  scholar,  a  mathematician,  a  phi- 
losopher, a  philologist,  a  man  of  taste  and  virtu,  a  divine,  and 
a  wit,  and  if  not  absolutely  a  poet,  yet  he  verges  often  on  po- 
etical conception,  and  his  free  and  fervid  eloquence  often  kin- 
dles into  the  fire  of  poetry. 

Every  one  who  has  read  the  "  Eclipse  of  Faith" — and  who 
1  as  not  ? — must  remember  how  that  remarkable  work  has  col- 
lected all  these  varied  powers  and  acquisitions  into  one  burn- 


HENRY    ROGERS.  393 


ing  focus,  and  must  be  ready  to  grant  that,  since  Pascal,  no 
knight  has  entered  into  the  arena  of  religious  controversy  bet- 
ter equipped  for  fight,  in  strength  of  argument,  in  quickness  of 
perception,  in  readiness  and  richness  of  resource,  in  command 
of  temper,  in  pungency  of  wit,  in  a  sarcasm  which  "  burns 
frore"  with  the  intense  coolness  of  its  severity,  and  in  a  species 
of  Socratic  dialogue  which  the  son  of  Sophroniscus  himself 
would  have  envied.  But,  as  the  public  and  the  press  gener- 
ally have  made  up  their  minds  upon  all  these  points,  as  also 
on  the  merits  of  his  admirable  "  Defence,"  and  have  hailed  the 
author  with  acclamation,  we  prefer  to  take  up  his  less  known 
preceding  efforts  in  the  "  Edinburgh  Review,"  and  to  bring 
their  merits  before  our  readers,  while,  at  the  same  time,  we 
hope  to  find  metal  even  more  attractive  in  the  great  names 
and  subjects  on  which  we  shall  necessarily  be  led  to  touch,  as, 
under  Mr.  Rogers'  guidance,  we  pursue  our  way.  We  long, 
too,  shall  we  say  to  break  a  lance  here  and  there  with  so  dis- 
tinguished a  champion,  although  assuredly  it  shall  be  all  in 
honor,  and  not  in  hate. 

From  his  political  papers  we  abstain,  and  propose  to  confine 
ourselves  to  those  on  letters  and  philosophy.  His  first,  and 
one  of  his  most  delightful  papers,  is  on  quaint  old  Thomas 
Fuller.  It  reminds  us  much  of  a  brilliant  paper  on  Sir 
Thomas  Browne,  contributed  to  the  same  journal,  we  under- 
stand, by  Bulwer.  Browne  and  Fuller  were  kindred  spirits, 
being  both  poets  among  wits,  and  wits  among  poets.  In 
Browne,  however,  imagination  and  serious  thought  rather  pre- 
ponderate, while  wit  unquestionably  is,  if  not  Fuller's  princi- 
pal faculty,  the  faculty  he  exercises  most  frequently,  and  with 
greatest  delight.  Some  authors  have  wit  and  imagination  in 
equal  quantities,  and  it  is  their  temperament  which  determines 
the  question  which  of  the  two  they  shall  specially  use  or  culti- 
vate. Thus,  Butler  of  "  Hudibras"  had  genuine  imagination 
as  well  as  prodigious  wit,  and,  had  he  been  a  Puritan  instead 
of  a  Cavalier,  he  might  have  indited  noble  serious  poetry. 
Browne  again,  was  of  a  pensive,  although  not  sombre  dispo- 
sition, and  hence  his  "  Urn-burial"  and  "  Religio  Medici"  are 
grave  und  imaginative,  although  not  devoid  of  quaint,  queer 
fancies  and  arabesque  devices,  which  force  you  to  smile. 
Fuller,  on  the  other  hand,  was  of  a  sanguine,  happy,  easy 


J94  MISCELLANEOUS    SKETCHES. 


temperament,  a  jolly  Protestant  father  confessor,  and  this 
attracted  him  to  the  side  of  the  laughing  muse.  Yet  he 
abounds  in  quiet,  beautiful  touches  both  of  poetry  and  pathos. 
Burke  had,  according  to  Mr.  Rogers,  little  or  no  wit,  although 
possessing  a  boundless  profusion  of  imagery.  To  this  we  de- 
mur. His  description  of  Lord  Chatham's  motley  cabinet ;  his 
picture,  in  the  "  Regicide  Peace,"  of  the  French  ambassador 
in  London;  his  description  of  those  "  who  are  emptied  of  their 
natural  bowels,  and  stuffed  with  the  blurred  sheets  of  the 
'Rights  of  Man;'"  his  famous  comparison  of  the  "gestation 
of  the  rabbit  and  the  elephant ;"  his  reply  to  the  defence  put 
in  for  Hastings,  that  the  Hindoos  had  erected  a  temple  to 
him  ("  He  knew  something  of  the  Hindoo  Mythology.  They 
were  in  the  habit  of  building  temples  not  only  to  the  gods  of 
light  and  fertility,  but  to  the  demons  of  small-pox  and  murder, 
and  he,  for  his  parts  had  no  objection  that  Mr.  Hastings 
should  be  admitted  into  such  a  Pantheon") — these  are  a  few 
out  of  many  proofs  that  he  often  exercised  that  most  brilliant 
species  of  wit  which  is  impregnated  with  imagination.  But 
the  truth  is,  that  Burke,  an  earnest,  if  not  a  sad-hearted  man, 
was  led  by  his  excess  of  zeal  to  plead  the  causes  in  which  he 
was  interested  in  general  by  serious  weapons,  by  the  burning 
and  barbed  arrows  of  invective  and  imagination,  rather  than 
by  the  light-glancing  missiles  of  wit  and  humor.  Jeremy 
Taylor,  with  all  his  wealth  of  fancy,  was  restrained  from  wit 
partly  by  the  subjects  he  was  led  through  his  clerical  profes- 
sion to  treat,  and  partly  from  his  temperament,  which  was 
quietly  glad,  rather  than  sanguine  and  mirthful.  Some  writ- 
ers, again,  we  admit,  and  as  Mr.  Rogers  repeatedly  shows, 
vibrate  between  wit  and  the  most  melancholy  seriousness  of 
thought;  the  scale  of  their  spirits,  as  it  rises  or  sinks,  either 
lifts  them  up  to  piercing  laughter,  or  depresses  them  to 
thoughts  too  deep  and  sad  for  tears.  It  was  so  with  Plato, 
with  Pascal,  with  Hood,  and  is  so,  we  suspect,  with  our  author 
himself.  Shakspeare,  perhaps,  alone  of  writers,  while  possess- 
ing wit  and  imaginative  wisdom  to  the  same  prodigious  degree, 
has  managed  to  adjust  them  to  each  other,  never  allowing  either 
the  one  or  the  other  unduly  to  preponderate,  but  uniting  them 
into  that  consummate  whole,  which  has  become  the  admiration, 
the  wonder,  and  the  despair  of  the  world. 


HENRY    ROGERS.  395 


Mr.  Rogers,  alluding  to  the  astonishing  illustrative  powers 
of  Jeremy  Taylor,  Burke,  and  Fuller,  says  finely,  "  Most 
marvellous  and  enviable  is  that  fecundity  of  fancy  which  can 
adorn  whatever  it  touches,  which  can  invest  naked  fact  and 
dry  reasoning  with  unlooked-for  beauty,  make  flowerets  bloom 
even  on  the  brow  of  the  precipice,  and,  when  nothing  better 
can  be  had,  can  turn  the  very  substance  of  rock  itself  into 
moss  and  lichens.  This  faculty  is  incomparably  the  most 
important  for  the  vivid  and  attractive  exhibition  of  truth  to 
the  minds  of  men."  We  quote  these  sentences,  not  merely  as 
being  true,  so  far  as  they  go,  but  because  we  want  afterwards 
to  mark  a  special  inconsistency  in  regard  to  them  which  he 
commits  in  a  subsequent  paper. 

We  have  long  desired,  and  often  expressed  the  desire,  to 
see  what  we  call  ideal  geography — i.  e.,  the  map  of  the  earth 
run  over  in  a  poetic  and  imaginative  way,  the  breath  of  genius 
passing  over  the  dry  bones  of  the  names  of  places,  and  through 
the  link  of  association  between  places  and  events,  characters 
and  scenery,  causing  them  to  live.  Old  Fuller  gives  us,  if 
not  a  specimen  of  this,  something  far  more  amusing ;  he  gives 
us  a  geography  of  joke,  and  even  from  the  hallowed  scenery 
of  the  Holy  Land,  he  extracts,  in  all  reverence,  matter  for 
inextinguishable  merriment.  What  can  be  better  in  their 
way  than  the  following  ?  "  Gilboa. — The  mountain  that 
David  cursed,  that  neither  rain  nor  dew  should  fall  on  it ;  but 
of  late  some  English  travellers  climbing  this  mountain  were 
well  wetted,  David  not  cursing  it  by  a  prophetical  spirit,  but  in 
a  poetic  rapture.  Edrei: — The  city  of  Og,  on  whose  giant- 
like proportions  the  rabbis  have  more  giant-like  lies.  Pis- 
gah. — Where  Moses  viewed  the  land ;  hereabouts  the  angel 
buried  him,  and  also  buried  the  grave,  lest  it  should  occasion 
idolatry."  And  so  on  he  goes  over  each  awful  spot,  chuckling 
in  harmless  and  half-conscious  glee,  like  a  schoolboy  through  a 
morning  churchyard,  which,  were  it  midnight,  he  would  travel 
in  haste,  in  terror,  and  with  oft-reverted  looks.  It  is  no  wish 
to  detract  from  the  dignity  and  consecration  of  these  scenes 
that  actuates  him ;  it  is  nothing  more  nor  less  than  his  irre- 
sistible temperament,  the  boy-heart  beating  in  his  veins,  and 
which  is  to  beat  on  till  death. 

Down  the  halls  of  history,  in  like  manner,  Fuller  skips 


396  MISCELLANEOUS    SKETCHES. 


along,  laughing  as  he  goes ;  and  even  when  he  pauses  to  mor- 
alise or  to  weep,  the  pause  is  momentary,  and  the  tear  which 
had  contended  during  its  brief  existence  with  a  sly  smile,  is 
"  forgot  as  soon  as  shed."  His  wit  is  often  as  withering  as  it 
is  quaint,  although  it  always  performs  its  annihilating  work 
without  asperity,  and  by  a  single  touch.  Hear  this  on  the 
Jesuits : — "  Such  is  the  charity  of  the  Jesuits,  that  they  never 
owe  any  man  any  ill-will — making  present  payment  thereof." 
Or  this  on  Machiavel,  who  had  said,  "  that  he  who  undertakes 
to  write  a  history  must  be  of  no  religion;"  "if  so,  Machiavel 
himself  was  the  best  qualified  of  any  in  his  age  to  write  a 
history."  Of  modest  women,  who  nevertheless  dress  them- 
selves in  questionable  attire,  he  says,  "  I  must  confess  some 
honest  women  may  go  thus,  but  no  whit  the  honester  for  going 
thus.  That  ship  may  have  Castor  and  Pollux  for  the  sign, 
which  notwithstanding  has  St.  Paul  for  the  lading."  His 
irony,  like  good  imagery,  often  becomes  the  shorthand  of 
thought,  and  is  worth  a  thousand  arguments.  The  bare,  bald 
style  of  the  schoolmen  he  attributes  to  design, "  lest  any  of 
the  vermin  of  equivocation  should  hide  themselves  under  the 
nap  of  their  words."  Some  of  our  readers  are  probably  smil- 
ing as  they  read  this,  and  remember  the  DRESS  of  certain  re- 
ligious priests,  not  unlike  the  schoolmen  in  our  day.  After 
commenting  on  the  old  story  of  St.  Dunstan  and  the  Devil,  he 
cries  out,  in  a  touch  of  irony  seldom  surpassed,  "  But  away 
with  all  suspicions  and  queries.  None  need  to  doubt  of  the 
truth  thereof,  finding  it  on  a  sign  painted  in  Fleet  Street,  near 
Temple  Bar." 

In  these  sparkles  of  wit  and  humor,  there  is,  we  notice,  not 
a  little  consciousness.  He  says  good  things,  and  a  quiet 
chuckle  proclaims  his  knowledge  that  they  are  good.  But  his 
best  things,  the  fine  serious  fancies,  which  at  times  cross  his 
mind,  cross  it  unconsciously,  and  drop  out  like  pearls  from 
the  lips  of  a  blind  fairy,  who  sees  not  their  lustre,  and  knows 
not  their  value.  Fuller's  deepest  wisdom  is  the  wisdom  of 
children,  and  his  finest  eloquence  is  that  which  seems  to  cross 
over  their  spotless  lips,  like  west  win^s  over  half-opened  rose- 
buds— breathings  of  the  Eternal  Spirit,  rather  than  utterances 
of  their  own  souls.  In  this  respect  and  in  some  others,  he 
much  resembled  John  Bunyan,  to  whom  we  wonder  Rogers 


HENRY    ROGERS.  307 


has  not  compared  him.  Honest  John,  we  verily  believe, 
thought  much  more  of  his  rhymes,  prefixed  to  the  second  part 
of  the  "  Pilgrim's  Progress,"  and  of  the  little  puzzles  and 
jokes  he  has  scattered  through  the  work,  than  of  his  divinely 
artless  portraiture  of  scenery,  passions,  characters,  and  inci- 
dents in  the  course  of  the  wondrous  allegory.  Mr.  Rogers 
quotes  a  good  many  of  Fuller's  precious  prattlings ;  but  Lamb, 
we  think,  has  selected  some  still  finer,  particularly  his  picture 
of  the  fate  of  John  Wickliff's  ashes.  Similar  touches  of  ten- 
der, quaint,  profound,  and  unwitting  sublimity,  are  found 
nearly  as  profusely  sprinkled  as  his  jests  and  clenches  through 
his  varied  works,  which  are  quite  a  quarry  of  sense,  wit,  truth, 
pedantry,  learning,  quiet  poetry,  ingenuity,  and  delightful  non- 
sense. Rogers  justly  remarks,  too,  that  notwithstanding  all 
the  rubbish  and  gossip  which  are  found  in  Fuller's  writings, 
he  means  to  be  truthful  always ;  and  that,  with  all  his  quaint- 
ness  and  pedantry,  his  style  is  purer  and  more  legible  than 
that  of  almost  any  writer  of  his  age.  It  is  less  swelling  and 
gorgeous  than  Browne's,  but  far  easier  and  more  idiomatic; 
less  rich,  but  less  diffuse,  than  Taylor's ;  less  cumbered  with 
learning  than  Burton's ;  and  less  involved,  and  less  darkened 
with  intermingling  and  crossing  beams  of  light  than  that  of 
Milton,  whose  poetry  is  written  in  the  purest  Grecian  manner, 
whilst  his  English  prose  often  resembles  not  G-othic,  but 
Egyptian  architecture,  in  its  chaotic  confusion  and  mispropor- 
tioned  magnificence. 

Mr.  Rogers'  second  paper  is  on  Andrew  Marvel,  and  con- 
tains a  very  interesting  account  of  the  life,  estimate  of  the 
character,  and  criticism  of  the  writings  of  this  "  Aristides- 
Butler,"  if  we  may,  in  the  fashion  of  Mirabeau,  coin  a  com- 
bination of  words,  which  seems  not  inapt,  to  represent  the 
virtues  of  that  great  patriot's  life,  and  the  wit  and  biting  sar- 
casm of  his  manner  of  writing.  He  tells  the  old  story  of  his 
father  crossing  the  Humber  with  a  female  friend,  and  perish- 
ing in  the  waters ;  but  omits  the  most  striking  part  of  the 
story,  how  the  old  man  in  leaving  the  shore,  as  the  sky  was 
scowling  into  storm,  threw  his  staff  back  on  the  beach,  and 
cried  out,  "Ho,  for  Heaven!"  The  tradition  of  this  is  at 
least  still  strong  in  Hull.  Nothing  after  Marvel's  integrity, 
and  his  quiet,  keen,  caustic  wit,  so  astonishes  us  as  the  fact 


398  MISCELLANEOUS    SKETCHES. 


that  he  never  opened  his  lips  in  Parliament !  He  was  "  No- 
speech  Marvel."  He  never  got  the  length  of  Addison's  "  I 
conceive,  I  conceive,  I  conceive."  There  are  no  authentic 
accounts  of  even  a  "  Hear,  hear !"  issuing  from  his  lips. 
What  an  act  of  self-denial  in  that  of  bad  measures  and  bad 
men  !  How  his  heart  must  sometimes  have  burned,  and  his 
lips  quivered,  and  yet  the  severe  spirit  of  self-control  kept 
him  silent !  What  a  contrast  to  the  infinite  babblement  of 
senators  in  modern  days  !  And  yet  was  not  his  silence  very 
formidable  ?  Did  it  not  strike  the  Tories  as  the  figure  of  the 
moveless  Mordecai  at  the  king's  gate  struck  the  guilty 
Haman  ?  There,  night  after  night,  in  front  of  the  despots, 
sat  the  silent  statue-like  figure,  bending  not  to  their  autho- 
rity, unmovable  by  their  threats,  not  to  be  melted  by  their 
caresses,  not  to  be  gained  over  by  their  bribes,  perhaps  with  a 
quiet,  stern  sneer  resting  as  though  sculptured  upon  his  lips, 
and,  doubtless,  they  trembled  more  at  this  dumb  defiance  than 
at  the  loud- mouthed  attacks  and  execrations  of  others ;  the  more 
as,  while  others  were  sometimes  absent  he  was  always  there,  a 
moveless  pillar  of  patriotism,  a  still  libel  of  truth,  for  ever 
glaring  on  their  fascinated  and  terror-stricken  eyes.  Can  we 
wonder  that  they  are  very  generally  supposed  to  have  removed 
him  from  their  sight,  in  the  only  way  possible  in  the  circum- 
stances, by  giving  him  a  premature  and  poisoned  grave  ? 

In  his  third  paper,  Rogers  approaches  a  mightier  and  more 
eloquent,  but  not  a  firmer  or  more  sincere  spirit  than  Marvel 
— Martin  Luther.  Here  he  puts  forth  all  his  strength,  and 
has,  we  think,  very  nobly  vindicated  both  Luther's  intellect- 
ual and  moral  character.  Hallam  (a  writer  whom  llogers 
greatly  over-estimates,  before  whom  he  falls  down  with  "  awful 
reverence  prone,"  from  whom  he  ventures  to  differ  with  u  a 
whispered  breath  and  bated  humbleness,"  which  seem,  consid- 
ering his  own  calibre,  very  laughable,  yet  of  whose  incapacity 
as  a  literary  critic,  and  especially  as  a  judge  of  poetry,  he 
seems  to  have  a  stifled  suspicion,  which  comes  out  in  the  paper 
on  Fuller,  whom  Hallam  has  slighted)  has  underrated  Lu- 
ther's talents,  because,  forsooth,  his  works  are  inferior  to  his 
reputation.  Why,  what  was  Luther's  real  work  ?  It  was  the 
Heformation.  What  library  of  Atlas  folios — ay,  though  Sbak 
speare  had  penned  every  line  in  it — could  have  been  compared 


HENRY  ROGERS.  89^ 

to  the  rending  of  the  shroud  of  the  Christian  church  ?  As 
soon  accuse  an  earthquake  of  not  being  so  melodious  in  its 
tones  as  an  organ,  as  demand  artistic  writings  from  Luther. 
His  burning  of  the  Pope's  bull  was,  we  think,  and  Mr.  Rogers 
thinks  with  us,  a  very  respectable  review.  His  journey  to 
Worms  was  as  clever  as  most  books  of  travel.  His  marriage 
with  Catharine  Bora  was  not  a  bad  epithalamium.  His  ren- 
dering of  the  Bible  into  good  German  was  nearly  as  great  a 
work  as  the  "  Constitutional  History."  Some  of  those  winged 
words  which  he  uttered  against  the  Pope  and  for  Christ  have 
been  called  "half-battles."  He  held  the  pen  very  well,  too, 
but  it  was  only  with  one  of  his  hundred  arms.  His  works 
were  his  actions.  Every  great  book  is  an  action ;  and  the 
converse  is  also  true-— every  great  action  is  a  book.  Crom- 
well, Mr.  Rogers  says,  very  justly,  cannot  be  judged  by  his 
speeches,  nor  Alexander.  Neither,  we  add,  could  Caesar  by 
his  "  Commentaries,"  which,  excellent  as  they  are,  develop 
only  a  small  portion  of  the  "  foremost  man  of  all  this  world;" 
nor  could  Frederick  of  Prussia  by  his  French  verses ;  nor 
could  Nelson  by  his  letters  to  Lady  Hamilton ;  nor  could 
even  Hall,  Chalmers,  and  Irving,  by  their  orations  and  dis- 
courses. There  is  a  very  high,  if  not  the  highest  order  of 
men,  who  find  literature  too  small  a  sheath  for  the  broadsword 
of  their  genius.  They  come  down  and  shrink  up  when  they 
commence  to  write;  but  they  make  others  write  for  them. 
Their  deeds  supply  the  material  for  ten  thousand  historians, 
novelists,  and  poets.  We  find  Lord  Holland,  in  his  "  Me- 
moirs," sneering  at  Lord  Nelson's  talents,  because  his  writings 
were  careless  and  poor.  Nelson  did  not  pretend  to  be  a  writ- 
er or  an  orator;  he  pretended  only  to  do  what  he  did — to 
sweep  the  seas  with  his  cannon,  and  be  the  greatest  naval 
commander  his  country  ever  produced.  Mungo  Park  and 
Ledyard  were  no  great  authors,  but  they  were,  what  they 
wished  to  be,  the  most  heroic  of  travellers.  Danton  never 
published  a  single  page,  but  he  was  incomparably  a  greater 
man  than  Canaille  Desmoulins,  who  wrote  thousands.  Would 
it  have  added  an  inch  to  the  colossal  stature,  or  in  any  meas- 
ure enhanced  the  lurid  grandeur,  of  Satan,  had  Milton  ascrib- 
ed to  him  the  invention,  not  of  fire-arms,  but  of  the  printing- 
press,  and  made  him  the  author  of  a  few  hundred  satires 


400  MISCELLANEOUS    SKETCHES. 


a^iinst  Omnipotence  ?  Channing  in  his  Essay  on  Napoleon, 
has  contributed  to  the  circulation  of  this  error.  He  gives 
there  a  decided  preference  to  literary  over  other  kinds  of 
power.  But  would  even  he  have  compared  Brougham  or  Dan- 
iel Webster  to  Washington  ?  It  seems  to  us  that  the  very 
highest  style  of  merit  is  when  the  powers  of  actions  and  author- 
ship are  combined  in  nearly  equal  proportions.  They  were  so 
in  Milton,  who  was  as  good  a  schoolmaster  and  secretary  as 
he  was  an  author.  They  were  so  in  Bacon,  who  was  an  able, 
if  not  a  just,  chancellor  and  statesman,  as  well  as  the  most 
richly-minded  of  men.  Notwithstanding  Mr.  Rogers,  they 
were  so,  we  think,  in  Napoleon,  whose  bulletins  and  speeches, 
though  often  in  false  taste,  were  often  as  brilliant  as  his  bat- 
tles. They  were  so  in  Burke,  who  was  a  first-rate  business 
man,  and  a  good  farmer,  as  well  as  a  great  orator,  statesman, 
and  writer.  They  were  so  in  poor  Burns,  who  used  the 
plough  as  well  as  he  used  the  pen.  And  they  were  so  in 
Scott,  who  was  an  excellent  Clerk  of  Session,  and  capital 
agriculturist  and  landlord,  besides  being  the  first  of  all  fiction- 
ists,  except  Cervantes,  who,  by  the  way,  fought  bravely  at  Le- 
panto,  as  well  as  wrote  "  Don  Quixote."  Even  in  Luther's 
case,  Mr.  Hallam  is  proved  by  Rogers  to  be  sufficiently  harsh 
in  his  judgment.  Luther's  productions,  occasional  as  most  of 
them,  and  hastily  written  as  all  of  them,  were,  are  not  the  me- 
diocre trash  which  Hallam  insinuates  them  to  be.  If  tried 
by  the  standard  of  that  species  of  literature  to  which  they  all 
in  reality  belong,  they  will  not  be  found  wanting.  They  are 
all  letters,  the  shorter  or  longer  epistles  of  a  man  greatly  en- 
grossed during  his  days,  and  who  at  evening  dashes  off  his  care- 
less, multifarious,  but  characteristic  correspondence.  Mark, 
too,  everything  he  wrote  was  sent,  and  sent  instantly,  to  the 
press.  Who  would  like  this  done  in  his  own  case  ?  What 
divine,  writing  each  week  his  two  sermons,  would  care  about 
seeing  them  regularly  printed  the  next  day,  and  dispersed  over 
all  the  country?  Who,  unless  he  were  a  man  of  gigantic 
genius  and  fame,  would  not  be  sunk  under  such  a  process,  and 
run  to  utter  seed  ?  The  fact  that  Luther  did  publish  so 
much,  and  did  nevertheless  retain  his  reputation,  proves,  that, 
although  much  which  he  wrote  must  have  been  unworthy  of 
his  genius,  yet,  as  a  whole,  his  writings  were  characteristic  of 


HENRY    ROGERS.  40 * 


his  powers,  and  contributed  to  the  working  out  of  his  purpose. 
They  were  addressed,  Mr.  Ilogers  justly  says,  chiefly  to  tha 
people,  and  many  of  his  strangest  and  strongest  expressions 
were  uttered  on  plan.  His  motto,  like  Danton's,  was, "  to  dare 
— and  to  dare,  and  to  dare."  He  felt  that  a  timid  reformer,  like 
a  timid  revolutionist,  is  lost,  and  that  a  lofty  tone,  whether  in  bad 
or  good  taste,  was  essential  to  the  success  of  his  cause.  Even 
as  they  are,  his  writings  contain  much  "  lion's  marrow,"  stern 
truth,  expressed  in  easy,  homespun  language,  savage  invec- 
tive, richly  deserved,  and  much  of  that  noble  scorn  with  which 
a  brave  honest  man  is  ever  fond  of  blowing  away,  as  through 
snorting  nostrils,  those  sophistries,  evasions,  and  meannesses  in 
controversy,  which  are  beneath  argument,  baffle  logical  expo- 
sure, and  which  can  only  be  reached  by  contempt.  Add  to 
all  this,  the  traditionary  reputation  of  his  eloquence,  and  those 
burning  coals  from  that  great  conflagration  which  have  come 
down  to  us  uncooled.  For  our  parts,  we  had  rather  possess 
the  renown  of  uttering  some  of  these,  than  have  written  all 
Chillingworth's  and  Barrow's  controversial  works.  Think  of 
that  sentence  which  he  pronounced  over  the  Bull  as  ho  burned  it, 
surely  one  of  the  most  sublime  and  terrible  that  ever  came  from 
human  lips  : — "  As  thou  hast  troubled  and  put  to  shame  the 
Holy  One  of  the  Lord,  so  be  thou  troubled  and  consumed  in 
eternal  fires  of  hell ;"  or  that  at  "Worms — "'  Here  I  stand ;  I  can- 
not do  otherwise  :  God  help  me."  Such  sentences  soar  above 
all  the  reaches  of  rhetoric,  of  oratory,  even  of  poetry,  and  rank 
in  grandeur  with  the  great  naked  abstractions  of  eternal  truth. 
They  thrill  not  the  taste,  nor  the  passions,  nor  the  fancy,  but 
the  soul  itself.  And  yet  they  were  common  on  the  lips  of 
Luther  the  lion-hearted — the 

"  Solitary  monk  that  shook  the  world." 

Mr.  Rogers,  besides,  culls  several  passages  from  his  familiar 
epistles,  which  attain  to  lofty  eloquence,  and  verge  on  the  finest 
prose  poetry.  His  occasional  grossness,  truculence,  and  per- 
sonality, are  undeniable  ;  but  they  were  partly  the  faults  of  his 
age,  and  sprung  partly  from  the  vehemence  of  his  temperament, 
and  the  uncertainty  of  his  position.  He  was,  during  a  large 
section  of  his  life,  at  bay,  and  if  he  had  not  employed  every 
weapon  in  his  power — his  teeth,  his  horns,  and  his  hoofs — to 


402  MISCELLANEOUS    SKETCHES. 


defend  himself,  he  had  inevitably  perished.  We  have  not  time 
to  follow  further  Rogers'  defence  of  Luther ;  suffice  it  to  say, 
that  he  does  full  justice  to  Luther's  honesty  of  purpose,  his 
deep  religious  convictions,  and  his  general  wisdom  and  pru- 
dence of  conduct.  His  errors  were  all  of  the  blood  and 
bodily  temperament,  and  none  of  the  spirit.  Cajetan  called 
him  "  a  beast  with  deep-set  eyes,  and  wonderful  speculations 
in  his  head."  If  so,  he  was  a  noble  savage — a  king  of  beasts, 
and  his  roar  roused  Europe  from  its  lethargy,  dissolved  the 
dark  spell  of  spiritual  slavery,  and  gave  even  to  Popery  all  the 
vitality  it  has  since  exhibited.  He  resembled  no  class  of  men 
more  than  some  of  the  ancient  prophets  of  Israel.  He  was 
no  Christian  father  of  the  first  centuries,  sitting  cobwebbed 
among  books,  no  evangelist  even  of  the  days  of  the  apostles, 
going  forth,  meek  and  sandalled,  with  an  olive  branch  in  his 
hand ;  he  reminds  us  rather,  in  all  but  austerity  and  absti- 
nence, of  the  terrible  Tishbite  conflicting  with  Baal's  prophets 
on  Carmel,  and  fighting  with  fire  the  cause  of  that  God  who 
answereth  by  fire  from  heaven.  But,  unlike  him,  Luther  came 
eating  and  drinking,  marrying  and  giving  in  marriage,  and  has 
been  reproached  accordingly. 

Mr.  Rogers'  next  paper  is  on  Leibnitz,  whom  he  justly  ranks 
with  the  most  wonderful  men  of  any  age — and  who,  in  that 
variety  of  faculty — that  plethora  of  power — that  all-sidedness 
which  distinguished  him,  resembled  a  monster  rather  than  a 
man.  A  sleepless  soul,  who  often,  for  weeks  together,  con- 
tented himself  with  a  few  hours'  slumber  in  his  arm-chair, 
without  ever  discomposing  his  couch  !  A  lonely  spirit — with 
no  tender  family  ties — but  entirely  devoted  to  inquiry  and 
investigation,  as  though  he  had  been  one  separated  Eye,  for 
ever  prying  into  the  universe  !  A  wide  eclectic  catholic  mind, 
intermeddling  with  all  knowledge,  and  seeking,  if  possible,  to 
bind  mathematics,  metaphysics,  poetry,  philology,  all  arts  and 
sciences,  into  the  unity  of  a  coronet  around  his  own  brow ! 
A  soul  of  prodigious  power  as  well  as  of  ideal  width ;  the 
inventor  of  a  new  and  potent  calculus — the  father  of  geology — 
the  originator  of  a  new  form  of  history,  which  others  have 
since  been  seeking  to  fill  up — and  the  author  of  a  heroic,  if 
not  successful,  effort  to  grapple  with  the  question  of  ques- 
tions— the  problem  of  all  ages-r-"  Whence  evil,  and  why  per- 


HENRY    ROGERS.  403 


twitted  in  God's  world  ?"  A  genius  for  whom  earth  seemed 
too  narrow  a  sphere,  and  threescore-and-ten  years  too  short  a 
period,  so  much  had  he  done  ere  death,  and  so  much  did  there 
seem  remaining  for  him  to  do — in  truth,  worthy  of  an  antedi- 
luvian life  !  A  mind  swarming  more  than  even  that  of  Cole- 
ridge with  seed-thoughts,  the  germs  of  entire  encyclopaedias  in 
the  future ;  and,  if  destitute  of  his  magical  power  of  poetic 
communication,  possessing  more  originality,  and  more  practi- 
cal energy.*  A  man  who  read  everything  and  forgot  nothing — 
a  living  dictionary  of  all  the  knowledge  which  had  been  accu- 
mulated by  man — and  a  living  prophecy  of  all  that  was  yet  to 
be  acquired — a  universal  preface  to  a  universal  volume — "  a 
gigantic  genius  born  to  grapple  with  whole  libraries."  Such 
is  Leibnitz  known  by  all  scholars  to  have  been.  His  two 
positive  achievements,  however,  the  two  pillars  on  which  he 
leans  his  Samson-like  strength,  are  the  differential  "  Calculus," 
and  the  "  Theodicee."  Mr.  Rogers'  remarks  on  both  these 
are  extremely  good.  In  the  vexed  question  as  to  the  origi- 
nation of  the  "  Calculus,"  between  Leibnitz  and  Newton  he 
seems  perfectly  impartial ;  and,  while  eagerly  maintaing  New- 
ton's originality,  he  defends  Leibnitz  with  no  less  strength, 
from  the  charge  of  surreptitious  plagiarism  from  Newton. 
Both  were  too  rich  to  require  to  steal  from  one  another.  In 
"  Theodicee,"  Leibnitz  undertook  the  most  daring  task  ever 
undertaken  by  thinker,  that  of  explaining  the  origin  of  evil  by 
demonstrating  its  necessity.  That  he  failed  in  this,  Voltaire 
has  proved,  after  his  manner,  in  "  Candide,"  the  wittiest  and 
wickedest  of  his  works,  and  Rogers,  in  a  very  different  spirit  and 
style,  has  demonstrated  here.  Indeed,  the  inevitable  eye  of 
common  sense  sees  at  a  glance  that  a  notion  of  this  earth  being 
the  best  of  all  possible  worlds  is  absurd  and  blasphemous. 
This  system  of  things  falls  far  below  man's  ideal,  and  how  can 
it  come  up  to  G-od's  ?  The  shadows  resting  upon  its  past  and 
present  aspect  are  so  deep,  numerous,  and  terrible,  that  nothing 

*  Since  writing  this,  we  have  lighted  on  a  paper  by  De  Quinccy,  in 
the  "  London  Magazine,"  containing  an  elaborate  comparison — coinci- 
dent with  our  views — between  Leibnitz  and  Coleridge,  "  who  both 
united  minds  distinguished  by  variety  and  compass  of  power  to  a 
bodily  constitution  resembling  that  of  horses.  They  were  centaurs  ; 
heroic  intellects,  with  brutal  capacities  of  body." 


404  MISCELLANEOUS    SKETCHES. 


hitherto,  but,  first,  simple,  child-like  faith ;  but,  secondly,  the 
prospect  of  a  better  time  at  hand;  and,  thirdly,  the  discove- 
ries of  Jesus  Christ,  can  convince  us  that  they  do  not  spring 
either  from  malignity  of  intention  or  weakness  of  power.  The 
time  has  not  yet  come  for  a  true  solution  of  this  surpassing 
problem;  which,  moreover,  though  it  were  given,  would  not 
probably  find  the  world  ripe  for  receiving  it.  We  are  inclined, 
in  opposition  to  Mr.  Rogers,  to  suppose  that  it  shall  yet  be 
solved ;  but  to  look  for  its  solution  in  a  very  different  direc- 
tion from  the  ground  taken,  whether  by  Leibnitz,  by  Bailey  of 
"  Festus,"  or  by  the  hundred  other  speculators  upon  the  mys- 
terious theme.  Meanwhile,  we  may,  we  think,  rest  firmly  upon 
these  convictions — first,  that  evil  exists — is  a  reality,  not  a 
negation  or  a  sham ;  secondly,  that  it  is  not  God's ;  and  that, 
thirdly,  it  shall  yet  cease,  on  earth  at  least,  to  be  man's.  All 
attempts  to  go  further  than  this  have  failed ;  and  failed,  we 
think,  from  a  desire  to  find  a  harmony  and  a  unity  where  no 
such  things  are  possible  or  conceivable. 

One  is  tempted  to  draw  a  kind  of  Plutarchian  parallel  be- 
tween Leibnitz  and  Newton — so  illustrious  in  their  respective 
spheres — and  whose  contest  with  one  another  "  in  their 
courses"  forms  such  a  painful,  yet  instructive,  incident  in  the 
history  of  science.  Newton  was  more  the  man  of  patient 
plodding  industry;  Leibnitz  the  man  of  restless  genius. 
Newton's  devotion  was  limited  to  science  and  theology ;  Leib- 
nitz pushed  his  impetuous  way  into  every  department  of 
science,  literature,  philosophy,  and  theology;  and  left  traces  of 
his  power  even  in  those  regions  he  was  not  able  fully  to  sub- 
due. Newton  studied  principally  the  laws  of  matter;  Leib- 
nitz was  ambitious  to  know  these  chiefly,  that  he  might  recon- 
cile, if  not  identify,  them  with  the  laws  of  mind.  Newton 
was  a  theorist — but  the  most  practical  of  theorists.  Leib- 
nitz was  the  most  theoretical  of  practical  thinkers.  Newton 
was  the  least  empirical  of  all  philosophers ;  Leibnitz  one  of 
the  most  so.  Newton  shunned  all  speculation  and  conjecture 
which  were  not  forced  upon  him;  Leibnitz  revelled  in  these  at 
all  times  and  all  subjects.  Newton  was  rather  timid  than 
otherwise,  he  groped  his  way  like  a  blind  Atlas,  while  stepping 
from  world  to  world ;  Leibnitz  saw  it  as  he  sailed  along  in 
supreme  dominion  on  the  wings  of  his  intellectual  imagina- 


HENRY    ROGERS.  405 


tion.  Newton  was  a  deeply  humble — Leibnitz,  a  dauntless 
and  daring  thinker.  Newton  did  his  full  measure  of  work, 
and  suggested  little  more  that  he  was  likely  to  do ;  Leibnitz, 
to  the  very  close  of  his  life,  teemed  with  promise.  The  one 
was  a  finished,  the  other  a  fragmentary  production  of  larger 
size.  The  one  was  a  rounded  planet,  with  its  corner-stones  all 
complete,  and  its  mechanisms  all  moving  smoothly  and  harmo- 
niously forward ;  the  other,  a  star  in  its  nebulous  mist,  and 
with  all  its  vast  possibilities  before  it.  Newton  was  awe- 
struck, by  the  great  and  dreadful  sea  of  suns  in  which  he 
swam,  into  a  mute  worshipper  of  the  Maker;  Leibnitz  sought 
rather  to  be  his  eloquent  advocate — 

"  To  assert  Eternal  Providence, 
And  justify  the  ways  of  God  to  man." 

To  Pascal,  Mr.  Rogers  proceeds  with  a  peculiar  intensity 
of  fellow-feeling.  He  has  himself,  sometimes,  been  compared 
to  Pascal,  both  in  the  mirthful  and  the  pensive  attributes  of 
his  genius.  Certainly,  his  sympathies  with  him  are  more 
thorough  and  brotherly  than  with  any  other  of  his  poetico- 
metaphysico-theosophical  heroes.  He  that  loves  most,  it  has 
often  been  said,  understands  best.  And  this  paper  of  Rogers 
sounds  the  very  soul  of  Pascal.  Indeed,  that  presents  fewer 
difficulties  than  you  might  at  first  suppose.  Pascal,  with  his 
almost  superhuman  genius,  was  the  least  subtle,  and  most 
transparent  of  men.  In  wisdom  almost  an  angel,  he  was  in 
simplicity  a  child.  His  single-mindedness  was  only  inferior 
to,  nay,  seemed  a  part  of,  his  sublimity.  He  was  from  the 
beginning,  and  continued  to  the  end,  an  inspired  infant.  A 
certain  dash  of  charlatanerie  distinguishes  Leibnitz,  as  it  does 
all  those  monsters  of  power.  The  very  fact  that  they  can  do 
so  much  tempts  them  to  pretend  to  do,  and  to  be  what  they 
cannot  and  are  not.  Possessed  of  vast  knowledge,  they  affect 
the  airs  of  omniscience.  Thus  Leibnitz,  in  the  universal  lan- 
guage he  sought  to  construct,  in  his  "  swift-going  carriages," 
in  his  "  Pre-established  Harmony,"  and  in  his  "  Monads," 
seems  seeking  to  stand  behind  the  Almighty,  to  overlook, 
direct,  or  anticipate  him  at  his  work.  Pascal  was  not  a  mon- 
ster ;  he  was  a  man — nay,  a  child ;  although  a  man  of  pro- 
foundest  sagacity,  and  a  child  of  transcendent  genius.  Chil- 


406  MISCELLANEOUS    SKETCHES. 


dren  feel  far  more  than  men  the  mysteries  of  being,  although 
the  gaiety  and  light-heartedness  of  their  period  of  life  pre- 
vent the  feeling  from  oppressing  their  souls.  Who  can  answer 
the  questions  or  resolve  the  doubts  of  infancy  ?  We  remem- 
ber a  dear  child,  who  was  taken  away  to  Abraham's  bosom  at 
nine  years  of  age,  saying  that  her  two  grand  difficulties  were, 
"  Who  made  God  ?  and  How  did  sin  come  into  the  world  ?" 
These — an  uncaused  cause,  and  an  originated  evil — are  the 
great  difficulties  of  all  thinking  men,  on  whom  they  press  more 
or  less  hardly  in  proportion  to  their  calibre  and  temperament. 
Pascal,  adding  to  immense  genius  a  child-like  tenderness  of 
heart  and  purity  of  conduct,  was  peculiarly  liable  to  the  tre- 
mendous doubts  and  fears  forced  on  us  all  by  the  phenomena 
of  man  and  the  universe.  He  felt  them,  at  once,  with  all  the 
freshness  of  infancy  and  with  all  the  force  of  a  melancholy 
manhood.  He  had  in  vain  tried  to  solve  them.  He  had 
asked  these  dreadful  questions  at  all  sciences  and  philosophies, 
and  got  no  reply.  He  had  carried  them  up  to  heights  of 
speculation,  where  angels  bashful  look,  and  down  into  depths 
of  reflection,  such  as  few  minds  but  his  own  have  ever  sounded, 
and  all  was  dumb.  Height  and  depth  had  said,  "  Not  in  us." 
The  universe  of  stars  was  cold,  dead,  and  tongueless.  He  felt 
terrified  at,  not  instructed  by  it.  He  said,  "  The  eternal 
silence  of  these  infinite  spaces  affrights  me"  He  had  turned 
for  a  solution  from  the  mysterious  materialism  of  the  heavenly 
bodies  to  man,  and  had  found  in  him  his  doubts  driven  to  con- 
tradiction and  despair ;  he  seemed  a  puzzle  so  perplexed,  a 
chaos  so  disorderly.  He  was  thus  rapidly  approaching  the 
gulf  of  universal  scepticism,  and  was  about  to  drop  in  like  a 
child  over  a  precipice,  when,,  hark  !  he  heard  a  voice  behind 
him  ;  and  turning  round,  saw  Christianity  like  a  mother  fol- 
lowing her  son  to  seek  and  to  save  him  from  the  catastrophe. 
Her  beauty,  her  mildness  of  deportment,  her  strange  yet  regal 
aspect,  and  the  gentleness  of  those  accents  of  an  unknown 
laud,  which  drop  like  honey  from  her  lips,  convince  him  that 
she  is  divine,  and  that  she  is  his  mother,  even  before  he 
has  heard  or  understood  her  message.  He  loves  and  be- 
lieves her  before  he  knows  that  she  is  worthy  of  all  credence 
and  all  love.  And  when,  afterwards  he  learns  in  some  mea- 
sure to  understand  her  tar  foreign  speech,  he  perceives  her 


HENRY    ROGERS.  -10  / 


still  more  certainly  to  be  a  messenger  from  heaven.  She 
does  not,  indeed,  remove  all  his  perplexities ;  she  allows  the 
deep  shadows  to  rest  still  on  the  edge  of  the  horizon,  and 
the  precipices  to  yawn  on ;  but  she  creates  a  little  space  of 
intense  clearness  around  her  child,  and  she  bridges  the  remoter 
gloom  with  the  rainbow  of  hope.  She  does  not  completely 
satisfy,  but  she  soothes  his  mind,  saying  to  him  as  he  kneels 
before  her,  and  as  she  blesses  her  noble  son,  "Remain  on  him, 
ye  rainbowed  clouds,  ye  gilded  doubts,  by  your  pressure  purify 
him  still  more,  and  prepare  him  for  higher  work,  deeper 
thought,  and  clearer  revelation ;  teach  him  the  littleness  of 
man  and  the  greatness  of  God,  the  insignificance  of  man's  life 
on  earth  and  the  grandeur  of  his  future  destiny,  and  impress 
him  with  this  word  of  the  Book  above  all  its  words,  '  That 
which  thou  knowest  not  now,  thou  shalt  hereafter  know,  if 
thou  wilt  humble  thyself,  and  become  as  a  little  child.'  " 
Thus  we  express  in  parable  the  healthier  portion  of  Pascal's 
history.  That  latterly  the  clouds  returned  after  the  rain, 
that  the  wide  rainbow  faded  into  a  dim  segment,  and  that  his 
mother's  face  shone  on  him  through  a  haze  of  uncertainty  and 
tears,  seems  certain ;  but  this  we  are  disposed  to  account  for 
greatly  from  physical  causes.  By  studying  too  hard,  and 
neglecting  his  bodily  constitution,  he  became  morbid  to  a 
degree  which  amounted,  we  think,  to  semi-mania.  In  this  sad 
state,  the  more  melancholy,  because  attended  by  the  full  pos- 
session of  his  intellectual  powers,  his  most  dismal  doubts  came 
back  at  times,  his  most  cherished  convictions  shook  as  with 
palsy,  the  craving  originally  created  by  his  mathematical 
studies  for  demonstrative  evidence  on  all  subjects,  became 
diseasedly  strong,  and  nothing  but  piety  and  prayer  saved 
him  from  shoreless  and  bottomless  scepticism.  Indeed,  his 
great  unfinished  work  on  the  evidences  of  Christianity,  seems 
to  have  been  intended  to  convince  himself  quite  as  much  as  to 
convince  others.  But  he  has  long  ago  passed  out  of  this  mys- 
terious world ;  and  now,  we  trust,  sees  "  light  in  God's  light 
clearly."  If  his  doubts  were  of  an  order  so  large  and  deep, 
that  they  did  not  "  go  out  even  to  prayer  and  fasting,"  he  was 
honest  in  them ;  they  did  not  spring  either  from  selfishness  of 
life  Or  pride  of  intellect ;  and  along  with  some  of  the  child's 
doubts,  the  child's  heart  remained  in  him  to  the  last. 


408  MISCELLANEOUS    SKETCHES* 


His  "  Thoughts" — what  can  be  said  adequately  of  those 
magnificent  fragments  ?  They  are  rather  subjects  for 
thoughts  than  for  words.  They  remind  us  of  aerolites,  the 
floating  fractions  of  a  glorious  world.  Some  of  them,  to  use 
an  expression  applied  to  Johnson's  sayings,  "  have  been  rolled 
and  polished  in  his  great  mind  like  pebbles  in  the  ocean." 
He  has  wrought  them,  and  finished  them,  as  carefully  as  if 
each  thought  were  -a  book.  Others  of  them  are  slighter  in 
thinking  and  more  careless  in  style.  But,  as  a  whole,  the 
collection  forms  one  of  the  profoundest  and  most  living  of 
works.  The  "Thoughts"  are  seed-pearl,  and  on  some  of  them 
volumes  might  be,  and  have  been,  written.  We  specially 
admire  those  which  reflect  the  steadfast  but  gentle  gloom  of 
the  author's  habit  of  mind,  the  long  tender  twilight,  not  with- 
out its  stars  and  gleams  of  coming  day,  which  shadowed  his 
genius,  and  softened  always  his  grandeur  into  pathos.  He 
is  very  far  from  being  a  splenetic  or  misanthropic  spirit. 
Nothing  personal  is  ever  allowed  either  to  shade  or  to 
brighten  the  tissue  of  his  meditations.  He  stands  a  passion- 
less spirit,  as  though  he  were  disembodied,  and  had  forgot  hi.s 
own  name  and  identity,  on  the  shore  which  divides  the  world 
of  man  from  the  immensity  of  God,  and  he  pauses  and  pon- 
ders, wonders  and  worships  there.  He  sees  the  vanity  and 
weakness  of  all  attempts  which  have  hitherto  been  made  to 
explain  the  difficulties  and  reconcile  the  contradictions  of  our 
present  system.  Yet,  without  any  evidence — for  all  quasi- 
evideuce  melts  in  a  moment  before  his  searching  eye  into 
nothing — he  believes  it  to  be  connected  with  one  Infinite 
Mind ;  and  this  springs  in  him,  not  as  Cousin  pretends,  from 
a  determination  blindly  to  believe,  but  from  a  whisper  in  his 
own  soul,  which  tells  him  warmly  to  love.  But  it  is  not,  after 
all,  the  matter  in  the  universe  which  he  regards  with  affection, 
it  is  the  God  who  is  passing  through  it,  and  lending  it  the 
glory  of  his  presence.  Mere  matter  he  tramples  on  and 
despises.  It  is  just  so  much  brute  light  and  heat.  He  does 
not,  and  cannot,  believe  that  the  throne  of  God  and  of  the 
Lamb  is  made  of  the  same  materials,  only  a  little  sublimated, 
as  yonder  dunghill  or  the  crest  of  yonder  serpent.  He  is  an 
intense  spiritualist.  He  cries  out  to  this  proud  process  of 
developing  matter,  this  wondrous  Something  sweltering  out 


HENRY   ROGERS.  409 


suns  in  its  progress — "  Thou  mayest  do  thy  pleasure  on  me, 
thou  mayest  crush  me,  but  I  will  know  that  thou  art  crushing 
me,  whilst  thou  shalt  crush  blindly.  I  should  be  conscious 
of  the  defeat.  Thou  shouldst  not  be  conscious  of  the  victory." 
Bold,  certainly,  was  the  challenge  of  this  little  piece  of  inspired 
humanity,  this  frail,  slender  invalid,  but  divinely  gifted  man, 
to  the  enormous  mass  of  uninspired  and  uuinstinctive  matter 
amid  which  he  lived.  He  did  not  believe  in  law,  life,  or  blind 
mechanism,  as  the  all-in-all  of  the  system  of  things.  He  be- 
lieved rather  in  Tennyson's  Second  Voice — 

"  A  little  whisper  breathing  low, 
I  may  not  speak  of  what  I  know." 

He  felt,  without  being  able  to  prove,  that  God  was  in  this 
place. 

Pascal's  result  of  thought  was  very  much  the  same  as  John 
Foster's,  although  the  process  by  which  he  reached  it  was  dif- 
ferent. Pascal  had  turned,  so  to  speak,  the  tub  of  matter 
upside  down,  and  found  it  empty.  Foster  had  simply  touched 
its  sides,  and  heard  the  ring  which  proclaimed  that  there  was 
nothing  within.  The  one  reached  at  once,  and  by  intuition, 
what  was  to  the  other  the  terminus  of  a  thousand  lengthened 
intellectual  researches.  Both  had  lost  all  hope  in  scientific 
discoveries  and  metaphysical  speculations,  as  likely  to  bring 
us  a  step  nearer  to  the  Father  of  Spirits,  and  were  cast,  there- 
fore, as  the  orphans  of  Nature,  upon  the  mercies  and  blessed 
discoveries  of  the  Divine  Word.  Both,  however,  felt  that 
THAT,  too,  has  only  very  partially  revealed  Truth,  that  the 
Bible  itself  is  a  "  glass  in  which  we  see  darkly,"  and  that  the 
key  of  the  Mysteries  of  Man  and  the  Universe  is  as  yet  in  the 
keeping  of  Death.  Both,  particularly  Foster,  expected  too 
much,  as  it  appears  to  us,  from  the  instant  transition  of  the 
soul  from  this  to  another  world.  Both  clothed  their  gloomy 
thoughts,  thoughts  "  charged  with  a  thunder"  which  was  never 
fully  evolved,  in  the  highest  eloquence  which  pensive  thought 
can  produce  when  wedded  to  poetry.  But,  while  Pascal's 
eloquence  is  of  a  grave,  severe,  monumental  cast,  Foster's  is 
expressed  in  richer  imagery,  and  is  edged  by  a  border  of  fiercer 
sarcasm ;  for,  although  the  author  of  the  "  Thoughts"  was 
the  author  of  the  "  Provincial  Letters,"  and  had  wit  and  sar* 

13 


410  MISCELLANEOUS     SKETCHES. 


casm  at  will,  they  are  generally  free  from  bitterness,  and  are 
rarely  allowed  to  intermingle  with  his  serious  meditations. 
(In  these  remarks,  we  refer  to  Foster's  posthumous  journal 
rather  than  to  his  essays.)  Both  felt  that  Christianity  was  yet 
in  bud,  and  looked  forward  with  fond  yet  trembling  anticipa- 
tion to  the  coming  of  a  "new  and  most  mighty  dispensation," 
when  it  shall,  under  a  warmer  and  nearer  sun,  expand  into  a 
tree,  the  leaves  of  which  shall  be  for  the  healing  of  the  nations, 
and  the  shade  of  which  shall  be  heaven  begun  on  earth.  We 
must  say  that  we  look  on  the  religion  of  such  men,  clinging 
each  to  his  plank  amid  the  weltering  wilderness  of  waves,  and 
looking  up  for  the  coming  of  the  day — a  religion  so  deep- 
rooted,  so  sad  as  regards  the  past  and  present,  so  sanguine  in 
reference  to  the  future,  so  doubtful  of  man  and  human  means, 
so  firm  in  its  trust  on  divine  power  and  promise,  with  far  more 
interest  and  sympathy  than  on  that  commonplace,  bustling 
Christianity  which  abounds,  with  its  stereotyped  arguments, 
its  cherished  bigotry  and  narrowness,  its  shallow  and  silly  glad- 
ness, its  Goody  Twoshoes  benevolence,  its  belief  in  well-oiled 
machineries,  Evangelical  Alliances,  Exeter  Hall  cheers,  the 
power  of  money,  and  the  voice  of  multitudes.  True  religion 
implies  struggle,  doubt,  sorrow,  and  these  are  indeed  the  main 
constituents  of  its  grandeur.  It  is  just  the  sigh  of  a  true  and 
holy  heart  for  a  better  and  brighter  sphere.  In  the  case  of 
Pascal  and  Foster,  this  sigh  becomes  audible  to  the  whole 
earth,  and  is  re-echoed  through  all  future  ages. 

It  was  during  the  brief  sunshine  hour  of  his  life,  that  Pas- 
cal wrote  his  "  Provincial  Letters."  On  these,  Rogers  dilates 
with  much  liveliness  and  power.  He  can  meet  his  author  at 
all  points,  and  is  equally  at  home  when  taking  a  brisk  morning 
walk  with  him  along  a  breezy  summit,  the  echoes  repeating 
their  shouts  of  joyous  laughter  ;  and  when  pacing  at  midnight 
the  shades  of  a  gloomy  forest  discolored  by  a  waning  moon, 
which  seems  listening  to  catch  their  whispers  as  they  talk  of 
death,  evil,  and  eternity.  The  "  Provincial  Letters"  are,  on 
the  whole,  the  most  brilliant  collection  of  controversial  letters 
extant.  They  have  not  the  rounded  finish,  the  concentration, 
the  red-hot  touches  of  sarcasm,  and  the  brief  and  occasional 
bursts  of  invective  darkening  into  sublimity,  which  distinguish 
the  letters  of  Junius.  Nor  have  they  the  profound  asides  of 


HENRY    ROGERS.  411 


reflection,  or  the  impatient  power  of  passion,  or  the  masses  of 
poetical  imagery,  to  be  found  in  Burke's  "  Letter  to  a  Noble 
Lord,"  and  "  Letters  on  a  Regicide  Peace;"  but  they  excel 
these  and  all  epistolary  writings  in  dexterity  of  argument,  in 
power  of  irony,  in  light,  hurrying,  scorching  satire,  a  "  fire 
running  along  the  ground,"  in  grace  of  motion,  and  in  Attic 
salt  and  Attic  elegance  of  style.  He  has  held  up  his  enemies 
to  immortal  scorn,  and  painted  them  in  the  most  contemptible 
and  ludicrous  attitudes — on  a  Grecian  urn.  He  has  preserved 
those  wasps  and  flies  in  the  richest  amber.  Has  he  not 
honored  too  much  those  wretched  sophisters,  by  destroying 
them  with  the  golden  shafts  of  Apollo  ?  Had  not  the  broad 
hoof  of  Pan,  or  the  club  of  Hercules,  been  a  more  appropriate 
weapon  for  crushing  and  mangling  them  into  mire  ?  But,  had 
he  employed  coarser  weapons,  although  equally  effective  in 
destroying  his  enemies,  he  had  gained  less  glory  for  himself. 
As  it  is,  he  has  founded  one  of  his  best  claims  to  immortality 
upon  the  slaughter  of  these  despicabilities,  like  the  knights  of 
old,  who  won  their  laurels  in  clearing  the  forests  from  wild 
swine  and  similar  brutes.  And,  be  it  remembered,  that, 
though  the  Jesuits  individually  were  for  the  most  part  con- 
temptible, their  system  was  a  very  formidable  one,  and  required 
the  whole  strength  of  a  master  hand  to  expose  it. 

We  close  this  short  notice  of  Pascal  with  rather  melan- 
choly emotions.  A  man  so  gifted  in  the  prodigality  of  heaven, 
and  so  short-lived  (just  thirty-nine  at  his  death  !)  A  man  so 
pure  and  good,  and  in  the  end  of  his  days  so  miserable  !  A 
sun  so  bright,  and  that  set  amid  such  heavy  clouds !  A 
genius  so  strong  and  so  well-furnished,  and  yet  the  slave  in  many 
things  of  a  despicable  superstition  !  One  qualified  above  his 
fellows  to  have  extended  the  boundaries  of  human  thought, 
and  to  have  led  the  world  on  in  wisdom  and  goodness,  and  yet 
who  did  so  little,  and  died  believing  that  nothing  was  worth 
being  done  !  One  of  the  greatest  thinkers  and  finest  writers 
in  the  world,  and  yet  despising  fame,  and  at  last  loathing  all 
literature  except  the  Lamb's  Book  of  Life!  Able  to  pass 
from  the  Dan  to  the  Beersheba  of  universal  knowledge,  and 
forced  to  exclaim  at  the  end  of  the  journey,  "All  is  barren!" 
Was  he  in  this  mad  or  wise — right  or  wrong  ?  We  think  the 
truth  lies  between.  He  was  right  and  wise  in  thinking  that 


412  MISCELLANEOUS    SKETCHES. 


man  can  do  little  at  the  most,  know  little  at  the  clearest, 
and  must  be  imperfect  at  the  best ;  but  he  was  wrong  and  mad 
in  not  attempting  to  know,  to  do,  and  to  be  the  little  within 
his  own  power,  as  well  as  in  not  urging  his  fellow-men  to  know, 
be,  and  do  the  less  within  theirs.  Like  the  wagoner  in  fable, 
and  Foster  in  reality,  while  calling  on  Hercules  to  come  down 
from  the  cloud,  he  neglected  to  set  his  shoulder  to  the  wheel. 
He  should  have  done  both,  and  thus,  if  he  had  not  expedited 
the  grand  purpose  of  progress  so  much  as  he  wished,  he  would 
at  least  have  delivered  his  own  soul,  secured  a  deeper  peace  jn 
his  heart,  and  in  working  more,  would  have  suffered  less. 
While  Prometheus  was  chained  to  his  rock,  Pascal  voluntarily 
chained  himself  to  his  by  the  chain  of  an  iron-spiked  girdle, 
and  there  mused  sublime  musings,  and  uttered  melodious 
groans,  till  merciful  Death  released  him.  He  was  one  of  the 
very  few  Frenchmen  who  have  combined  imagination  and 
reverence,  with  fancy,  intellect,  and  wit. 

In  his  next  paper,  Mr.  Rogers  approaches  another  noble 
and  congenial  theme — Plato,  and  his  master  Socrates.  It  is 
a  Greek  meeting  a  Greek,  and  the  tug  of  war,  of  course, 
comes — a  generous  competition  of  kindred  genius.  We  have 
read  scores  of  critiques — by  Landor,  by  Shelley,  by  Bulwer, 
by  Sir  Daniel  Sandford,  by  Emerson  and  others,  on  these 
redoubted  heroes  of  the  Grecian  philosophy;  but  we  forget  if 
any  of  them  excel  this  of  our  author  in  clearness  of  state- 
ment, discrimination,  sympathy  with  the  period,  and  apprecia- 
tion of  the  merits  of  the  two  magnificent  men.  Old  Socrates, 
with  his  ugly  face,  his  snub  nose,  his  strong  head  for  standing 
liquor,  his  restless  habits,  his  subtle  irony,  the  inimitable 
dialogue  on  which  he  made  his  enemies  to  slide  down  as  on  a 
mountain-side  of  ice,  from  the  heights  of  self-consequent  secu- 
rity to  the  depths  of  defeat  and  exposure;  his  sublime  com- 
mon sense;  his  subtle,  yet  homely  dialectics,opening  up  mines 
of  gold  by  the  wayside,  and  getting  the  gods  to  sit  on  the 
roof  of  the  house ;  his  keen  raillery,  his  power  of  sophiscat- 
iug  sophists,  and  his  profound  knowledge  of  his  own  nes- 
cience, is  admirably  daguerreotyped.  With  equal  power,  the 
touches  lent  to  him  by  the  genius  of  his  disciple  are  discrimi- 
nated from  the  native  traits.  Plato,  to  say  the  least  of  it,  has 
colored  the  calotype  of  Socrates  with  the  tints  of  his  own  fine 


HENRY    ROGERS.  413 


and  fiery  imagination  ;  or  he  has  acted  as  a  painter,  when  he 
puts  a  favorite  picture  in  the  softest  and  richest  light;  or  as 
a  poet,  when  he  visits  a  beautiful  scene  by  moonlight ;  or  as  a 
lover,  when  he  gently  lifts  up  the  image  of  his  mistress  across 
the  line  which  separated  it  from  perfection.  We  often  hear  of 
people  throwing  themselves  into  such  and  such  a  subject ; 
there  is  another  process  still — -that  of  adding  one's-self  to 
such  and  such  a  character.  You  see  a  person,  who,  added  to 
yourself,  would  make,  you  think,  a  glorious  being,  and  you 
proceed  to  idealise  accordingly;  you  stand  on  his  head,  and 
out-tower  the  tallest ;  you  club  your  brains  with  his,  and  are 
wiser  than  the  wisest ;  you  add  the  heat  of  your  heart  to  his, 
and  produce  a  very  furnace  of  love.  Thus  Solomon  might 
have  written  David's  romantic  history,  and  given  the  latter,  in 
addition  to  his  courage,  sincerity  and  lyric  genius,  his  own 
voluptuous  fancy  and  profound  acquirements.  All  biographers, 
indeed,  possessed  of  any  strong  individuality  themselves,  act 
very  much  in  this  way  when  narrating  the  lives  of  kindred 
spirits.  And,  certainly,  it  was  thus  that  Plato  dealt  with 
Socrates.  The  Platonic  Socrates  is  a  splendid  composite, 
including  the  sagacity,  strength,  theological  acumen,  and  grand 
modesty,  as  of  the  statue  of  a  kneeling  god,  which  distin- 
guished the  master ;  and  the  philosophic  subtlety,  the  high 
imagination,  the  flowing  diction,  and  the  exquisite  refinement 
of  the  disciple.  Yet,  even  Socrates  in  the  picture  of  Plato  is 
not,  for  a  moment,  to  be  compared  to  the  Carpenter  of  Naza- 
reth, as  represented  by  his  biographer,  John  the  Fisherman  of 
Galilee.  We  shall  quote,  by  and  by,  the  fine  passage  in  which 
Mr.  Rogers  draws  the  comparison  between  the  two. 

To  Plato  as  a  thinker  and  Avriter  ample  justice  is  done. 
Perhaps  too  little  is  said  against  that  slip-slop  which  in  his 
writings  so  often  mingles  with  the  sublimity.  They  are  often, 
verily,  strange  symposia  which  he  describes — a  kind  of  Noctes 
Amb?-osian(Z,  swarming  here  with  bacchanalian  babblement, 
and  there  with  sentences  and  sayings  which  might  have  been 
washed  down  with  nectar.  They  are  intensely  typical  of  the 
ancient  Grecian  mind,  of  its  heights  and  its  depths,  its  unna- 
tural vices  and  its  lofty  ideals  of  art.  In  their  conception  of 
beauty,  the  Greeks  approximated  the  ideal,  but  their  views  of 
God  and  of  man  were  exceedingly  imperfect.  Hence  their 


414  MISCELLANEOUS    SKETCHES. 


disgusting  vices;  hence  their  sacrifice  of  everything  to  the 
purposes  of  art ;  hence  the  sensuality  of  their  genius  when 
compared  to  that  of  the  Gothic  nations ;  hence  the  resistance 
offered  by  their  philosophers  to  Christianity,  which  appeared 
to  them  "  foolishness  ;"  hence  Platonism,  the  highest  effort  of 
their  philosophy,  seems  less  indigenuous  to  Greece  than  Aristo- 
telianisrn,  and  resembles  an  exotic  transplanted  from  Egypt 
or  Palestine.  Except  in  Plato  and  JEschylus,  there  is  little 
appr6aeh  in  the  productions  of  the  Greek  genius  to  moral  sub- 
limity or  to  a  true  religious  feeling.  Among  the  prose  writ- 
ers of  Greece,  Aristotle  and  Demosthenes  more  truly  reflected 
the  character  of  the  national  mind  than  Plato.  They  were 
exceedingly  ingenious  and  artistic,  the  one  in  his  criticism,  and 
the  other  in  his  oratory,  but  neither  was  capable  of  the  lowest 
flights  of  Plato's  magnificent  prose-poetry.  Aristotle  was,  as 
Macaulay  calls  him,  "the  acutest  of  human  beings;"  but  it 
was  a  cold,  needle-eyed  acuteness.  As  a  critic,  his  great 
merit  lay  in  deducing  the  principles  of  the  epic  from  the  per- 
fect example  set  by  Homer,  like  a  theologian  forming  a  per- 
fect system  of  morality  from  the  life  of  Christ ;  but  this, 
though  a  useful  process,  and  one  requiring  much  talent,  is  not 
of  the  highest  order  even  of  intellectual  achievements,  and  has 
nothing  at  all  of  the  creative  in  it.  It  is  but  the  work  of  an 
index-maker  on  a  somewhat  larger  scale.  Demosthenes,  Mr. 
Rogers,  with  Lord  Brougham  and  most  other  critics,  vastly 
over-rates.  His  speeches,  as  delivered  by  himself,  must  have 
been  overwhelming  in  their  immediate  effect,  but  really  consti- 
tute, when  read,  morsels  as  dry  and  sapless  as  we  ever  tried  to 
swallow.  They  are  destitute  of  that  "  action,  action,  action," 
on  which  he  laid  so  much  stress,  and  having  lost  it,  they  have 
lost  nearly  all.  They  have  a  good  deal  of  clear  pithy  state- 
ment, and  some  striking  questions  and  apostrophes,  but  have 
no  imagery,  no  depth  of  thought,  no  grasp,  no  grandeur,  no 
genius.  Lord  Brougham's  speeches  we  have  called  "  law-pa- 
pers on  fire;"  the  speeches  of  Demosthenes  are  law-papers 
with  much  less  fire.  To  get  at  their  merit  we  must  apply  the 
well-known  rule  of  Charles  James  Fox.  He  used  to  ask  if 
such  and  such  a  speech  read  well;  "  if  it  did,  it  was  a  bad 
speech,  if  it  did  not  it  was  probably  good."  On  this  principle 


HENRY    ROGERS.  415 


the  orations  of  Demosthenes  must  be  the  best  in  the  world, 
since  they  are  about  the  dullest  reading  in  it. 

Far  otherwise  with  the  golden  sentences  of  Plato.  Dry 
argument,  half  hot  with  passion,  is  all  Demosthenes  can  fur- 
nish.  Plato 

"  Has  gifts  in  their  most  splendid  variety  and  most  harmo- 
nious combinations ;  rich  alike  in  powers  of  invention  and 
acquisition ;  equally  massive  and  light ;  vigorous  and  muscu- 
lar, yet  pliable  and  versatile ;  master  at  once  of  thought  and 
expression,  in  which  originality  and  subtlety  of  intellect  are 
surrounded  by  all  the  ministering  aids  of  imagination,  wit,  hu- 
mor, and  eloquence,  and  the  structure  of  his  mind  resembles 
some  masterpiece  of  classic  architecture,  in  which  the  marble 
columns  rise  from  their  deep  foundation  exquisitely  fashioned 
and  proportioned,  surmounted  with  elaborate  and  ornamented 
capitals,  and  supporting  an  entablature  inscribed  with  all 
forms  of  the  beautiful. 

"Plato's  style,"  Mr.  Rogers  proceeds,  "is  unrivalled;  he 
wielded  at  will  all  the  resources  of  the  most  copious,  flexible, 
and  varied  instrument  of  thought  through  which  the  mind  of 
man  has  ever  yet  breathed  the  music  of  eloquence.  Not  less 
severely  simple  and  refined  when  he  pleases  than  Pascal,  be- 
tween whom  and  Plato  many  resemblances  existed — as  in 
beauty  of  intellect,  in  the  delicacy  of  their  wit,  in  aptitude  for 
abstract  science,  and  in  moral  wisdom ;  the  Grecian  philoso- 
pher is  capable  of  assuming  every  mood  of  thought,  and  of 
adopting  the  tone,  imagery,  and  diction  appropriate  to  each. 
Like  Pascal,  he  can  be  by  turns  profound,  sublime,  pathetic, 
sarcastic,  playful;  but  with  a  far  more  absolute  command 
over  all  the  varieties  of  manner  and  style.  He  could  pass,  by 
the  most  easy  and  rapid  transitions,  from  the  majestic  elo- 
quence which  made  the  Greeks  say,  that  if  Jupiter  had  spoken 
the  language  of  mortals  he  would  have  spoken  in  that  of  Plato, 
to  that  homely  style  of  illustration  and  those  highly  idiomatic 
modes  of  expression  which  mark  the  colloquial  manner  of  his 
Socrates,  and  which,  as  Alcibiades  in  his  eulogium  observes, 
might  induce  a  stranger  to  say  that  the  talk  of  the  sage  was 
all  about  shoemakers  and  tailors,  carpenters  and  braziers." — 
p.  334. 

We  promised  to  quote  also  his  closing  paragraph.     Here  it 


416  MISCELLANEOUS    SKETCHES. 


is,  worthy  in  every  respect  of  the  author  of  the  "  Eclipse  of 
Faith,"  and  equal  to  its  best  passages  : — 

"  We  certainly  hold  the  entire  dramatic  projection  and  rep- 
resentation of  Socrates  in  the  pages  of  Plato,  to  be  one  of  the 
most  wonderful  efforts  of  the  human  mind.  In  studying  him, 
it  is  impossible  that  his  character  as  a  teacher  of  eth,ics,  and 
and  his  life-like  mode  of  representation,  should  not  suggest  to 
us  (mother  character  yet  more  wonderfully  depicted,  and  by 
the  same  most  difficult  of  all  methods — that  of  dramatic  evolu- 
tion by  discourse  and  action ;  of  one  who  taught  a  still,  purer, 
subliiaer,  and  more  consistent  ethics,  pervaded  by  a  more  in- 
tense spirit  of  humanity,  of  one  whose  love  for  our  race  was 
infinitely  deeper  and  more  tender,  who  stands  perfectly  free 
from  those  foibles  which  history  attributes  to  the  real,  Socra- 
tes, and  from  that  too  Protean  facility  of  manners  which, 
though  designed  by  Plato  as  a  compliment  to  the  philosophic 
flexibility  of  his  character  of  Socrates,  really  so  far  assimilat- 
ed him  with  mere  vulgar  humanity  ;  of  one,  too,  whose  sublime 
and  original  character  is  not  only  exhibited  with  the  most 
wonderful  dramatic  skill,  but  in  a  style  as  unique  as  the  cha- 
racter it  embodies — a  style  of  simple  majesty,  which,  unlike 
that  of  Plato,  is  capable  of  being  readily  translated  into  every 
language  under  heaven  ;  of  one  whose  life  was  the  embodiment 
of  that  virtue  which  Plato  affirmed  would  entrance  all  hearts 
if  seen,  and  whose  death  throws  the  prison-scenes  of  the  '  Phse- 
do'  utterly  into  the  shade;  of  one,  lastly,  whose  picture  has 
arrested  the  admiring  gaze  of  many  who  have  believed  it  to  be 
only  a  picture.  Now,  if  we  feel  that  the  portraiture  of  Soc- 
rates in  the  pages  of  Plato  involved  the  very  highest  exercise 
of  the  highest  dramatic  genius,  and  that  the  cause  was  no 
more  than  commensurate  with  the  effect,  it  is  a  question 
which  may  well  occupy  the  attention  of  a  philosopher,  how  it 
came  to  pass  that  in  one  of  the  obscurest  periods  of  the  his- 
tory of  an  obscure  people,  in  the  dregs  of  their  literature  and 
the  lowest  depths  of  superstitious  dotage,  so  sublime  a  con- 
ception should  have  been  so  sublimely  exhibited ;  how  it  was 
that  the  noblest  truths  found  an  oracle  in  the  lips  of  the 
grossest  ignorance,  and  the  maxims  of  universal  charity  advo- 
cates in  the  hearts  of  the  most  selfish  of  narrow-minded  big- 
ots; in  a  word,  who  could  be  the  more  than  Plato,  (or  rather 


HENRY    HOOER.S.  417 


the  many  each  more  than  Plato),  who  drew  that  radiant  por- 
trait, of  which  it  may  be  truly  said,  '  that  a  far  greater  than 
Socrates  is  here  ?'  "—pp.  366,  377. 

Passing  over  a  very  ingenious  paper  on  the  "  Structure  of 
the  English  Language,"  we  come  to  one  on  the  "  British  Pul- 
pit," some  of  the  statements  in  which  are  weighty  and  power- 
ful, but  some  of  which  we  are  compelled  to  controvert.  Mr. 
Rogers  begins  by  deploring  the  want  of  eloquence  and  of  ef- 
fect in  the  modern  pulpit.  There  is,  undoubtedly,  too  much 
reason  for  this  complaint,  although  we  think  that  in  the  pres- 
ent day  it  is  not  so  much  eloquence  that  men  desiderate  in 
preaching,  as  real  instruction,  living  energy,  and  wide  variety 
of  thought  and  illustration.  Mr.  Rogers  says  very  little 
about  the  substance  of  sermons,  and,  in  what  he  does  say, 
seems  to  incline  to  that  principle  of  strait-lacing  which  we 
thought  had  been  nearly  exploded.  No  doubt  every  preacher 
should  preach  the  main  doctrines  of  the  gospel,  but,  if  he 
confine  himself  exclusively  to  these,  he  will  limit  his  own 
sphere  of  power  and  influence.  Why  should  he  not  preach  the 
great  general  moralities  as  well  ?  Why  should  he  not  tell, 
upon  occasion,  great  political,  metaphysical,  and  literary 
truths  to  his  people,  turning  them,  as  they  are  so  susceptible 
of  being  turned,  to  religious  account  ?  It  will  not  do  to  tell 
us  that  preachers  must  follow  the  Apostles  in  every  respect. 
Christ  alone  was  a  perfect  model,  and  how  easy  and  diversified 
his  discourses !  He  had  seldom  any  text.  He  spake  of  sub- 
jects as  diverse  from  each  other  as  are  the  deserts  of  Gralilee 
from  the  streets  of  Jerusalem;  the  summit  of  Tabor  from 
the  tower  of  Siloam ;  the  cedar  of  Lebanon  from  the  hyssop 
springing  out  of  the  wall.  He  touched  the  political  affairs  of 
Judea,  the  passing  incidents  of  the  day,  the  transient  contro- 
versies and  heartburnings  of  the  Jewish  sects,  with  a  finger  as 
firm  and  as  luminous  as  he  did  the  principles  of  morality  and 
of  religion.  Hence,  in  part,  the  superiority  and  the  success 
of  his  teaching.  It  was  a  wide  and  yet  not  an  indefinite  and 
baseless  thing.  It  swept  the  circumference  of  nature  and  of 
man,  and  then  radiated  on  the  cross  as  on  a  centre.  It  gath- 
ered an  immense  procession  of  things,  thoughts,  and  feelings, 
and  led  them  through  Jerusalem  and  along  the  foot  of  Cal- 
vary. It  bent  all  beings  and  subjects  into  its  grand  purpose. 

IS* 


418  MISCELLANEOUS    SKETCHES. 


transfiguring  them  as  they  stooped  before  it.  It  was  this 
catholic  eclectic  feature  in  Christ's  teaching  which,  while  it 
made  many  cry  out,  "  Never  man  spake  like  this  man,"  has 
created  also  some  certain  misconceptions  of  its  character. 
Many  think  that  he  was  at  bottom  nothing  more  than  a  Pan- 
theistic poet,  because  he  shed  on  all  objects — on  the  lilies  of 
the  valley,  the  salt  of  the  sea,  the  thorns  of  the  wilderness, 
the  trees  of  the  field,  the  rocks  of  the  mountain,  and  the  sands 
of  the  sea-shore — that  strange  and  glorious  light  which  he 
brought  with  him  to  earth,  and  poured  around  him  as  from 
the  wide  wings  of  an  angel,  as  from  the  all-beautifying  beams 
of  dawn. 

We  think  that,  if  Christ's  teaching  be  taken  as  the  test  and 
pattern,  Mr.  Rogers  limits  the  range  of  preaching  too  much 
when  he  says  his  principal  characteristics  should  be  "  practi- 
cal reasoning  and  strong  emotion."  Preaching  is  not  a  mere 
hortatory  matter.  Sermons  are  the  better  of  applications, 
but  they  should  not  be  all  application.  Ministers  should 
remember  to  address  mankind  and  their  audiences  as  a  whole, 
and  should  seek  here  to  instruct  their  judgments,  and  there  to 
charm  their  imagination  ;  here  to  allure,  and  there  to  alarm; 
here  to  calm,  and  there  to  arouse  ;  here  to  reason  away  their 
doubts  and  prejudices,  and  there  to  awaken  their  emotions. 
Mr.  Rogers  disapproves  of  discussing  first  principles  in  the 
pulpit,  and  says  that  "  the  Atheist  and  Deist  are  rarely  found 
in  Christian  congregations."  We  wish  we  could  believe  this. 
If  there  are  no  avowed  Atheists  or  Deists  in  our  churches, 
there  are,  we  fear,  many  whose  minds  are  grievously  unsettled 
and  at  sea  on  such  subjects,  and  shall  they  be  altogether- 
neglected  in  the  daily  ministrations  ?  Of  what  use  to  speak 
to  them  of  justification  by  faith,  who  think  there  is  nothing 
to  be  believed,  or  of  the  New  Birth,  who  do  not  believe  in  the 
Old,  but  deem  themselves  fatherless  children  in  a  forsaken 
world  ?  We  think  him  decidedly  too  severe,  also,  in  his  con- 
demnation of  the  use  of  scientific  and  literary  language  in  the 
pulpit.  Pedantry,  indeed,  and  darkening  counsel  by  techni- 
cal language,  we  abhor,  but  elegant  and  scholarly  diction  may 
be  combined  with  simplicity  and  clearness,  and  has  a  tendency 
to  elevate  the  minds  and  refine  the  tastes  of  those  who  listen 
to  K  It  is  of  very  little  use  coming  down,  as  it  is  called,  to 


HENRY    ROGERS.  419 


men's  level ;  now-a-days,  if  you  do  so,  you  will  get  'nothing 
but  contempt  for  your  pains — you  cannot,  indeed,  be  too  intel- 
ligible, but  you  may  be  so  while  using  the  loftiest  imagery 
and  language.  Chalmers  never  "  came  down  to  men's  level." 
and  yet  his  discourses  were  understood  and  felt  by  the  hum- 
blest of  his  audience,  when  by  the  energy  of  his  genius  and 
the  power  of  his  sympathies  he  lifted  them  up  to  his. 

Mr.  Rogers  thinks  that  all  preachers  aspiring  to  power  and 
usefulness  will  "  abhor  the  ornate  and  the  florid,"  and  yet  it 
is  remarkable  that  the  most  powerful  and  the  most  useful,  too, 
of  preachers  have  been  the  most  ornate  and  florid.  Who  more 
ornate  than  Isaiah  ?  Who  spoke  more  in  figures  and  parables 
than  Jesus?  Chrysostom,  of  the  "golden  mouth,"  belonged 
to  the  same  school.  South  sneers  at  Jeremy  Taylor,  and 
Rogers  very  unworthily  re-echoes  the  sneer;  but  what  com- 
parison between  South  the  sneerer,  and  Taylor,  the  sneered 
at,  in  genius  or  in  genuine  power  and  popularity  ?  To  how 
many  a  cultivated  mind  has  Jeremy  Taylor  made  religion 
attractive  and  dear,  which  had  hated  and  despised  it  before  ? 
Who  more  florid  than  Isaac  Taylor,  and  what  writer  of  this 
century  has  done  more  to  recommend  Christianity  to  certain 
classes  of  the  community?  He,  to  be  sure,  is  no  preacher, 
but  who  have  been  or  are  the  most  popular  and  most  powerful 
preachers  of  the  age  ?  Chalmers,  Irving,  Melville,  Hall ; 
and  amid  their  many  diversities  in  point  of  intellect,  opinion, 
and  style,  they  agree  in  this — that  they  all  abound  in  figura- 
tive language  and  poetical  imagery.  And  if  John  Foster 
failed  in  preaching,  it  was  certainly  not  from  want  of  imagi- 
nation, which  formed,  indeed,  the  staple  of  all  his  best  dis- 
courses. Mr.  Rogers,  to  be  sure,  permits  a  "  moderate  use. 
of  the  imagination;"  but,  strange  to  say,  it  is  the  men  who 
have  made  a  large  and  lavish  use  of  it  in  preaching  who  have 
most  triumphantly  succeeded.  Of  course  they  have  all  made 
their  imagination  subservient  to  a  high  purpose ;  but  we 
demur  to  his  statement  that  no  preacher  should  ever  employ 
his  imagination  merely  to  delight  us.  He  should  not,  indeed, 
become  constantly  the  minister  of  delight;  but  he  should,  and 
must  occasionally,  in  gratifying  himself  with  his  own  fine 
fancies,  give  an  innocent  and  intense  gratification  to  others, 
and  having  thus  delighted  his  audience,  mere  gratitude  on 


420  MISCELLANEOUS    SKETCHES. 


their  part  will  prepare  them  for  listening  with  more  attention 
and  interest  to  his  solemn  appeals  at  the  close.  He  says  that 
the  splendid  description  in  the  "  Antiquary"  of  a  sunset  would 
be  altogether  out  of  place  in  the  narrative  by  a  naval  historian 
of  two  fleets  separated  on  the  eve  of  engagement  by  a  storm, 
or  in  any  serious  narrative  or  speech,  forgetting  that  the  "  An- 
tiquary" professes  to  be  a  serious  narrative,  and  that  Burke, 
in  his  speeches  and  essays,  has  often  interposed  in  critical 
points  of  narration  descriptions  quite  as  long  and  as  magnifi- 
cent, which,  nevertheless,  so  far  from  exciting  laughter,  pro- 
duce the  profoundest  impression,  blending,  as  they  do,  the 
energies  and  effects  of  fiction  and  poetry  with  those  of  prose 
and  fact. 

That  severely  simple  and  agonistic  style,  which  Mr.  Kogers 
recommends  so  strongly,  has  been  seldom  practised  in  Britain, 
except  in  the  case  of  Baxter,  with  transcendent  effect.  At  all 
events,  the  writings  of  those  who  have  followed  it,  have  not 
had  a  tithe  of  the  influence  which  more  genial  and  fanciful 
authors  have  exerted.  For  one  who  reads  South,  ten  thou- 
sand revel  in  Jeremy  Taylor.  Howe,  a  very  imaginative  and 
rather  diffuse  writer,  has  supplanted  Baxter  in  general  esti- 
mation. In  Scotland,  while  the  dry  sermons  of  Ebenezer 
Erskine  are  neglected,  the  lively  and  fanciful  writings  of  his 
brother  Ralph  have  still  a  considerable  share  of  popularity. 
The  works  of  Chalmers  and  Gumming,  destined  as  both  are 
in  due  time  to  oblivion,  are  preserved  in  their  present  life  by 
what  in  the  first  is  real,  and  in  the  second  a  semblance  of 
imagination.  Of  the  admirable  writings  of  Dr.  Harris,  and 
of  Hamilton,  we  need  not  speak.  Latimer,  South,  and  Bax- 
ter, whom  Rogers  ranks  so  highly,  are  not  classics.  Even 
Jonathan  Edwards  and  Butler,  with  all  their  colossal  talent, 
are  now  little  read  on  account  of  their  want  of  imagination. 
The  same  vital  deficiency  has  doomed  the  sermons  of  Tillot- 
son,  Atterbury,  Sherlock,  and  Clarke.  Indeed,  in  order  to 
refute  Mr.  Rogers,  we  have  only  to  recur  to  his  own  words, 
quoted  above — "  this  faculty — fancy,  namely — is  incomparably 
the  most  important  for  the  vivid  and  attractive  exhibition  of 
truth  to  the  minds  of  men.''  It  follows,  that,  since  the  great 
object  of  preaching  is  to  exhibit  truth  to  the  minds  of  men, 
fancy  is  the  faculty  most  needful  to  the  preacher,  and  that  the 


HEXRY    ROGERS.  421 


want  of  it  is  the  most  fatal  of  deficiencies.  In  fact,  although 
a  few  preachers  have,  through  the  agonistic  methods,  hy  pure 
energy  and  passion,  produced  great  effects,  these  have  been 
confined  chiefly  to  their  spoken  speech,  have  not  been  trans- 
ferred to  their  published  writings,  and  have  speedily  died 
away.  It  is  the  same  in  other  kinds  of  oratory.  Fox's  elo- 
quence, which  studied  only  immediate  effect,  perished  with 
him,  and  Pitt's  likewise.  Burke's,  being  at  once  highly  ima- 
ginative and  profoundly  wise,  lives,  and  must  live  for  ever. 

We  have  not  room  to  enlarge  on  some  other  points  in  the 
paper.  We  think  Mr.  Rogers  lays  far  too  much  stress  on  the 
time  a  preacher  should  take  in  composing  his  sermons.  Those 
preachers  who  spend  all  the  week  in  finical  polishing  of  peri- 
ods, and  intense  elaboration  of  paragraphs,  are  not  the  most 
efficient  or  esteemed.  A  well-furnished  mind,  animated  by 
enthusiasm,  will  throw  forth  in  a  few  hours  a  sermon  incom- 
parably superior,  in  force,  freshness,  and  energy,  to  those  dis- 
courses which  are  slowly  and  toilsomely  built  up.  It  may  be 
different  sometimes  with  sermons  which  are  meant  for  publica- 
tion. Yet  some  of  the  finest  published  sermons  in  literature 
have  been  written  at  a  heat. 

From  the  entire  second  volume  of  these  admirable  essays, 
we  must  abstain.  "  Reason  and  Faith"  would  itself  justify  a 
long  separate  article.  Nor  can  we  do  any  more  than  allude, 
at  present,  to  that  noble  "  Meditation  among  the  Tombs  of 
Literature,"  which  closes  the  first  volume,  and  which  he  enti- 
tles the  "  Vanity  and  Grlory  of  Literature."  It  is  full  of  sad 
truth,  and  its  style  and  thinking  are  every  way  worthy  of  its 
author's  genius. 


422  MISCELLANEOUS    SKETCHES. 


jftSCHYLtJS;   PKOMETHEUS  BOUND  AND  TJNBOMD.* 

PROFESSOR  BLACKIE  has  lately  translated  the  "  Prometheus 
Vinctus"  into  English  verse.  Without  much  ease,  or  grace, 
or  melody,  his  translation  is  very  spirited,  and  gives  a  more 
vivid  idea  of  ^Eschylus,  in  his  rugged  energy  and  rapturous 
enthusiasm,  than  any  other  verse  rendering  we  have  read. 
But  we  are  mistaken  if  the  mere  English  reader  does  not  de- 
rive a  better  notion  of  ^Eschylus  still  from  the  old  prose  ver- 
sions. Best  of  all  were  such  a  translation  as  Dr.  John  Carlyle 
has  executed  of  Dante,  distinguished  at  once  by  correctness 
and  energy.  What  a  thing  his  brother  Thomas  could  make 
of  the  "  Prometheus"  in  his  prose  ! 

The  sympathy  which  this  great  poet  felt  for  the  ancient  my- 
thology of  his  country,  for  gods  to  whom  Jove  was  but  a 
beardless  boy,  was  strictly  a  fellow-feeling.  He  was  a  Titan 
among  men ;  and  we  fancy  him,  sick  of  the  present,  and  re- 
verting to  the  past,  tired  of  the  elegant  mannikins  around, 
and  stretching  forth  his  arms  to  grasp  the  bulky  shades  of  a 
bygone  era.  He  had  been  a  soldier,  too,  and  this  had  pro- 
bably infused  into  his  mind  a  certain  contempt  for  mankind  as 
they  were.  He  that  mingles  and  takes  a  part  in  a  battle-field, 
would  require  to  be  more  than  mortal  to  escape  this  feeling, 
seeing  there,  as  he  must,  man  writhen  into  all  varieties  of 
painful,  shameful,  despicable,  and  horrible  attitudes.  It  was, 
indeed,  at  Marathon,  Salamis,  and  perhaps"  Plataea,  that  he 
mingled  in  warfare ;  but  the  details  of  even  these  world-fa- 
mous fights  of  freedom  must  have  been  as  mean  and  disgust- 
ing as  those  of  Borodino  or  Austerlitz.  From  man  JEschj- 
lus  turned  pensively  and  proudly  to  the  gods ;  first,  to  the 
lower  circle  of  Jove  and  Apollo,  but,  with  deeper  reverence 
and  fonder  love,  to  that  elder  family  whom  they  had  supplant- 
ed. Of  that  fallen  house  he  became  and  continued  the  laure- 
ate, till  the  boy  Keats,  with  hectic  heat  and  unearthly  beauty, 
sang  "  Hyperion." 

*  "  Prometheus  Bound"  and  "  Unbound  ;"  Blackie's  "  ^Eschylus  :'' 
Shelley's  "  Prometheus." 


PROMETHEUS  BOUND  AND  UNBOUND.  423 


More  strictly  speaking,  ^schylus  was  the  poet  of  destiny, 
duty,  and  other  great  abstractions.  He  saw  these  towering 
over  Olympus,  reposing  in  his  sleeping  Furies,  and  shining 
like  stars  through  the  shadows  of  his  gods.  To  him,  whether 
consciously  or  unconsciously,  the  deities  were  .  embodied 
thoughts,  as  those  of  all  men  must  in  some  measure  be ;  and 
his  thoughts,  being  of  a  lofty  transcendental  order,  found  fit- 
ter forms  in  the  traditionary  members  of  the  Saturnian  house, 
than  in  the  more  recent  and  more  sharply-defined  children  of 
Jove. 

His  genius  was  lofty  and  bold,  but  rather  bare  and  stern. 
Luxuriance  and  wealth  of  thought  and  imagination  were 
hardly  his ;  they  are  seldom  found  so  high  as  the  Promethean 
crags,  although  they  sometimes  appear  in  yet  loftier  regions, 
such  as  Job,  Isaiah,  and  the  "  Paradise  Lost."  His  language 
is  the  only  faculty  he  ever  pushes  to  excess.  It  is  sometimes 
overloaded  into  obscurity,  and  sometimes  blown  out  into 
extravagance.  But  it  is  the  thunder,  and  no  lower  voice, 
which  bellows  among  those  lonely  and  difficult  rocks,  and  it 
must  be  permitted  to  follow  its  own  old  and  awful  rhythm. 

At  Gela  in  Sicily,  in  the  sixty-ninth  year  of  his  age,  died 
this  Titan — banished,  as  some  think,  at  all  events  alienated, 
from  his  native  country.  It  was  fitting  that  he  should  have 
found  a  grave  in  the  land  of  Etna  and  the  Cyclopses.  There, 
into  the  hands  of  his  Maker,  he  returned  the  "  blast  of  the 
breath  of  his  nostrils;"  and  a  prouder  and  a  more  powerful 
spirit  never  came  from,  and  never  returned  to  God. 

"  Prometheus  Bound"  is  not  the  most  artistic  or  finished 
of  j3Bschylus'  plays ;  but  it  is  the  most  characteristic  and  sub- 
lime. There  are  more  passion  and  subtlety  in  the  "  Agamem- 
non;" but  less  intensity  and  imagination.  The  "Agamem- 
non" is  his  "  Lear;"  and  the  "  Prometheus"  his  "  Macbeth." 
It  was  natural  that  a  mind  so  lofty  and  peculiar  as  this  poet's 
should  be  attracted  towards  the  strange  and  magnificent  myth 
of  Prometheus.  It  seemed  a  fable  waiting  for  his  treatment. 
Thus  patiently,  from  age  to  age,  have  certain  subjects,  like 
spirits  on  the  wrong  side  of  Styx,  or  souls  in  their  antenatal/ 
state,  seemed  to  icait  till  men  arose  able  to  incarnate  them  in 
history  or  song.  And  it  matters  not  how  many  prematurely 
try  to  give  them  embodiment !  Their  time  is  not  yet,  and 


424  MISCELLANEOUS    SKETCHES. 


they  must  tarry  on.  Twenty  plays  on  Lear  might  have  been 
written,  and  yet  the  subject  had  remained  virgin  for  Shak- 
speare.  The  subject  of  Faust  had  been  treated,  -well  or  ill, 
before  G-oethe;  but  his  is  now  the  "Faust."  So  of  Prome- 
theus the  Titan  there  had  been  many  drawings  or  busts  be- 
fore, in  antique  Greek  poetry ;  but  it  was  reserved  for  .ZEschy- 
lus  to  cast  him  in  colossal  statuary,  with  head,  limbs,  and  all 
complete. 

Many  were  the  attractions  of  the  subject  for  him.  First 
of  all,  Prometheus  was  a  Titan — one  of  the  old  race,  who 
reigned  ere  evil  was  ;  secondly,  he  was  a  benevolent  and  pow- 
erful being,  suffering — a  subject  to  meet  and  embrace  which, 
all  the  noble  sympathies  of  the  poet's  nature  leaped  up; 
thirdly,  the  story  was  full  of  striking  points,  peculiarly  adapt- 
ed both  for  the  lyric  and  the  drama;  and,  fourthly,  there  was 
here  a  gigantic  mask  ready,  from  behind  which  the  poet  could 
utter  unrebuked  his  esoteric  creed,  and  express  at  once  his 
protest  against  things  as  they  are,  his  notion  of  what  they  ought 
to  be,  and  his  anticipation  of  what  they  are  yet  to  become. 
For  these  and  other  reasons,  while  the  vulture  fastens  upon  the 
liver  of  Prometheus,  JEschylus  leaps  into,  and  possesses  his 
soul. 

The  fable  is  as  follows : — Prometheus,  son  of  Japetus  and 
Themis,  or  Clymene,  instead  of  opposing  Jove,  as  his  brother 
Titans  had,  by  force,  employs  cunning  and  counsel.  He  rears 
up  and  arms  man  as  his  auxilary  against  Heaven.  He  be- 
stows on  him,  especially  the  gift  of  fire,  and  enables  him  there- 
with to  cultivate  the  arts,  and  to  rise  from  his  degradation. 
For  this  crime,  Jove  dooms  him  to  be  chained  to  a  rock, 
with  a  vulture  to  feed  upon  his  liver.  But  Prometheus, 
knowing  that  from  lo's  race  would  spring  a  demigod  (Hercu- 
les), who  would  deliver  him  from  his  chains,  suffered  with  he- 
roic firmness ;  he  was  even  acquainted  with  the  future  fate  of 
Jove,  which  was  unknown  to  the  god  himself.  When  this  irre- 
sistible enemy  of  Jupiter  should  appear,  Prometheus  was  to 
be  delivered  from  his  sufferings.  The  reconciliation  of  Jupi- 
ter with  his  victim  was  to  be  the  price  of  the  disclosure  of  the 
danger  to  his  empire,  from  the  consummation  of  his  marriage 
with  Thetis.  Thetis  was,  in  consequence  of  his  disclosure, 
given  in  marriage  to  Peleus;  and  Prometheus,  with  the  per- 


PROMETHEUS  BOUND  AN!  UNBOUND.          425 


mission  of  Jupiter,  delivered  from  his  captivity  by  Hercules 
Such  is  the  story  which  ^Eschylus  extended  through  three 
lyrical  dramas,  the  first  and  last  of  which  are  irrecoverably 
lost. 

A  difficulty  here  arises,  which  has  puzzled  and  disunited  the 
critics  and  commentators.  Does,  or  does  not,  ^schylus  mean 
to  represent  Jupiter  as  a  tyrant  ?  If  not,  why  do  neither 
Mercury  nor  Ocean,  who  are  introduced  as  his  ministers,  seek 
to  defend  his  character  against  the  attacks  of  the  Titan  ? 
And  yet,  if  he  does,  why  should  he  afterwards,  as  Shelley 
remarks,  intend  a  "  catastrophe  so  feeble  as  the  reconciliation 
of  the  champion  with  the  oppressor  of  mankind  ?"  To  evade 
this  difficulty,  Shelley,  in  his  play,  overthrows  Jupiter  before 
Prometheus  and  Hercules  combined.  The  champion  triumphs 
over  the  oppressor.  Professor  Blackie,  on  the  other  hand 
denies  that  it  was  the  purpose  of  the  poet  to  represent  Jove 
as  a  tyrant ;  but  that  he  meant  ultimately,  in  the  closing 
drama,  to  unite  the  jarring  claims  of  both — of  Prometheus  as 
the  umpire  between  gods  and  men,  and  of  Jove  as  possessing 
the  supreme  right  to  rule  and  to  punish.  But,  first,  he  does 
not  explain  the  silence  of  Jove's  ministers  as  to  the  character 
of  their  calumniated  lord ;  secondly,  as  a  writer  in  the 
"  Eclectic"  shows,  he  wrests  the  words,  and  misrepresents  the 
character  of  Ocean,  whom  JBschylns  means  manifestly  for  a 
time-server;  thirdly,  he  does  not  answer  the  complaints  of 
Prometheus  himself,  which  seem  to  us  on  his  theory  quite 
overwhelming;  and,  lastly,  he  does  not  throw  out  the  faintest 
glimpse  of  what  could  be  the  medium  of  reconciliation  which 
the  last  play  was  to  develop. 

Two  theories  occur  to  us  as  to  this  knotty  point.  One  is, 
that  ^Eschylus,  in  his  "  Prometheus  I/abound,"  meant  to 
represent  Jove  as  repentant  ;  and,  by  timely  penitence,  saving 
his  throne,  and  regaining  his  original  character.  Prometheus, 
according  to  this  view,  would  assume  the  sublime  attitude  of 
the  forgiver  instead  of  the  forgiven.  The  second  and  more 
probable  theory  is,  that,  in  the  last  play,  .ZEschylus  meant  to 
make  it  appear  that  Jove  had  been  "  playing  a  part ;"  though 
for  the  wisest  and  noblest  reasons  "  hiding  himself,"  as  we 
might  say,  and  that  he  meant  to  surprise  Prometheus,  as  well 
as  bis  own  servants,  and  the  universe,  by  producing  suddenly 


426  MISCELLANEOUS    SKETCHES. 


the  reasons  •which  had  made  him  assume  the  aspect  of  the  op 
pressor,  and  convince  even  his  victim  that  his  sufferings  had 
been  disguised  benefits.  These,  however,  are  only  conjectures. 
The  poet's  solution  of  the  self-involved  problem  is  hid  in  im- 
penetrable darkness. 

Were,  however,  the  second  of  those  conjectures  allowed,  it 
would,  we  think,  give  a  clear,  consistent,  and  almost  a  Chris- 
tian meaning  to  the  whole  fable  of  the  "  Prometheus."  Man 
and  God  are  at  variance  :  the  one  is  abject  and  degraded — the 
other  seems  cold,  distant,  and  cruel.  Mediators,  numerous, 
wise,  and  benevolent,  rise  up  to  heal,  but  seem  rather  to  widen, 
the  breach.  They  become  victims  before  High  Heaven.  The 
divine  vengeance,  like  a  vulture,  covers  them  with  its  vast 
wing.  All  their  inventions  add  little,  whether  to  their  own 
happiness  or  to  that  of  the  species.  They  bear,  however,  on 
the  whole,  bravely ;  they  suffer,  on  the  whole,  well.  Their 
melodious  groanings,  become  the  poetry  and  the  philosophy  of 
the  world.  Their  tragedies  are  sublime  and  hopeful.  A 
golden  thread  of  promise  passes,  from  bleeding  hand  to  bleed- 
ing hand,  down  the  ages.  The  reconciliation  is  at  last  effected, 
by  the  interposition  of  a  divine  power.  A  Hercules  is  at  last 
born,  and  glorified,  who  effects  this  surpassing  labor.  He 
shows  that  God  has  all  along  hid  intolerable  love  and  light 
under  the  deep  shadows  of  this  present  time.  He  has  punished 
Prometheus ;  he  has  allowed  himself  to  be  misrepresented ; 
he  has  suffered  man  to  fall ;  he  has  made  the  wisest  of  the 
race  tenfold  partakers  of  the  common  misery,  that  he  might  at 
last  surprise  them  by  dropping  the  veil  of  ages,  and  showing 
a  face  of  ineffable  love,  the  more  glorious  for  the  length  of  the 
obscuration  and  the  suddenness  of  the  discovery.  The  result 
is — heaven  on  earth — man,  his  Titan  instructors,  his  Hercu- 
lean deliverer,  and  his  Heavenly  Father,  united  in  one  family 
of  changeless  peace,  and  progressive  felicity  and  glory. 

Our  readers  will  perceive  in  this  a  rude  sketch  of  the  great 
Christian  scheme,  rescued  from  the  myths  and  shadows  of 
Paganism.  We  by  no  means  offer  it  with  dogmatic  confidence, 
as  the  one  true  explication.  Tnere  are,  we  admit,  subordinate 
parts  in  the  fable  which  it  leaves  unexplained ;  and  it  assumls 
a  termination  to  the  last  play  of  the  "  Trilogy"  which  is  neces- 
sarily gratuitous.  But  it  seems  as  probable  as  any  other  we 


PROMETHEUS  BOUND  AND  UNBOUND.          4'27 


have  met.  It  affords  a  striking  and  curious  coincidence  with 
some  of  our  Christian  verities.  And,  were  it  admitted,  its 
effect  would  be  to  cast  a  more  pleasing  light  upon  the  old 
world-moving  story.  The  storm-beaten  rock  in  the  Scythian 
desert — the  far  lands  below — the  everlasting  snows  around — 
the  bare  head  of  the  solitary,  unsleeping,  uuweeping  Titan — 
the  blistering  sun  of  noon — the  cold  Orion,  and  the  Great 
Bear  of  night,  which  seem  carrying  tidings  of  his  fate  to  dis- 
tant immensities — the  faithful  vulture,  "  that  winged  hound" 
of  hell,  tapping  at  his  side  with  her  slow  red  beak — the  sym- 
pathies of  visiters — the  stern  succession  of  duty-doing  minis- 
ters of  wrath — and,  lastly,  the  avatar  of  the  long-expected 
Deliverer,  shaking  the  Caucasus  at  his  coming;  and  the  meet- 
ing in  mid-air  of  the  two  reconciled  parties,  amid  the  jubilant 
shouts  of  earth  and  heaven — all  this  would  then  shine  upon 
us  in  a  gleam,  however  remote  and  faint,  from  the  Christian 
Sun. 

From  "  Prometheus  Bound"  the  Mystery,  let  us  turn  to  look 
at  it  in  a  moment  more,  as  "  Prometheus  Bound"  the  Poem. 
It  is  the  only  play  in  which  you  do  not  regret  the  rigid  pre- 
servation of  unity  of  place ;  for  the  place  is  so  elevated,  com- 
mands such  a  prospect,  and  is  so  strictly  in  keeping  with  the 
character  and  the  subject,  that  you  neither  wish,  nor  could  bear 
it  shifted.  The  play  is  founded  on  a  rock ;  and  there  it  must 
stand.  The  action  and  the  dialogue  are  severely  simple  and 
characteristic.  Might  and  Force  are  strongly  drawn.  They 
are  alike,  but  different.  Might  talks  confidently,  like  a 
favored  minion.  Force  is  like  a  giant  Nubian  slave  "  made 
dumb  by  poison."  He  speaks  none,  but  his  silent  frown  unites 
with  Might's  loquacity  in  compelling  Hephaestus  to  do  his 
reluctant  part  in  chaining  the  Titan  to  the  rock.  The  Oceani- 
des  utters  glorious  asides.  Has  not  every  noble  sufferer  since 
the  world  began  had  his  chorus,  visible  or  invisible,  to  sym- 
pathise and  to  soothe  him  ?  Is  not  this  a  benevolent  arrange- 
ment of  the  great  Hidden  Being  who  permits  or  presides  over 
the  tragedy  ?  Socrates  had  friends  wise  and  immortal  as  him- 
self around  him  when  he  drank  the  hemlock.  When  Lord 
Ru'ssell  was  riding  up  Tower  Hill,  the  multitude  thought  they 
saw  "  Liberty  aud  Justice  seated  at  his  side."  And,  if  we 
may  dare  the  reference,  did  not,  near  a  greater  sufferer  than 


428  MISCELLANEOUS    SKETCHES. 


them  all,  in  the  Garden,  "  an  angel  appear  from  heaven 
strengthening  him  ?"  Even  when  men  supply  the  other  ele- 
ments of  the  tragedy,  God  provides  the  music,  which  is  to 
soften,  to  sublimate,  and  to  harmonize  the  whole.  In  conso- 
nance with  this,  the  Grecian  chorus  may  be  called  the  divine 
commentary,  or  the  running  consolation  made  in  music  upon 
the  dark  main  business  of  the  play. 

Ocean  is  a  plausable  sycophant.  lo,  although  necessary, 
has  the  effect  of  an  excrescence,  albeit  a  beautiful  one.  The 
prophetic  tale  of  her  wanderings  is  one  of  those  delicious  pas- 
sages, rarely  to  be  found  except  in  the  Greeks,  or  in  Milton, 
in  which  mere  names  of  places  become  poetical  by  the  artful 
opposition  of  associations  connected  with  them.  In  this, 
which  we  call  in  a  former  paper  ideal  geography,  Homer, 
.ZEschylus,  and  Milton  are  the  three  unequalled  masters. 
Hear  .ZEschylus : — 

"  First,  lo,  what  remains 

Of  thy  far  sweeping  wanderings  hear,  and  grave 
My  words  on  the  sure  tablets  of  thy  mind. 
When  thou  hast  pass'd  the  narrow  stream  that  parts 
The  continents  to  the  far  flame-faced  East, 
Thou  shalt  proceed  the  highway  of  the  sun ; 
Then  cross  the  sounding  ocean,  till  thou  reach 
Cisthene  and  the  Gorgon  plains,  where  dwell 
Phorcy's  three  daughters.     Them  Phoebus,  beamy-bright, 
Beholds  not,  nor  the  nightly  moon.     Near  them 
Their  winged  sisters  dwell,  the  Gorgons  dire. 

One  more  sight  remains, 
That  fills  the  eye  with  horror :  mark  me  well ; 
The  sharp-beaked  griffins,  hounds  of  Jove,  avoid, 
Fell  dogs  that  bark  not,  and  the  one-eyed  host 
Of  Arimaspian  horsemen  with  swift  hoofs, 
Beating  the  banks  of  golden-rolling  Pluto. 
A  distant  land,  a  swarthy  people  next 
Eeceives  thee  ;  near  the  fountains  of  the  sun 
They  dwell  by  JEthiop's  wave.    This  river  trace, 
Until  thy  weary  feet  shall  reach  the  pass 
Whence  from  the  Bybline  heights  the  sacred  Nile 
Pours  his  salubrious  flood.    The  winding  wave 
Thence  to  triangled  Egypt  guides  thee,  where 
A  distant  home  awaits  thee,  fated  mother 
Of  no  unstoried  race." 

Compare  this  with  Milton's  list  of  the  fallen  angels,  or  his 

description  of  the  prospect  from  the  Mount  of  the  Temptation. 

But  Prometheus  himself  absorbs  almost  all  the  interest,  and 


PROMETHEUS    BOUND    AND    UNBOUND.  429 


utters  almost  all  the  poetry  in  the  play.  He  1  as  been  com- 
pared to  Satan,  and  certainly,  in  grandeur  of  utterance,  dig- 
nity of  defiance,  and  proud  patience  of  suffering,  is  comparable 
to  no  other.  But  there  are  important  differences  which,  in 
our  notion,  elevate  Prometheus  as  a  moral  being  above,  and 
sink  him,  as  a  brave  and  intellectual  being,  far  below,  that 
tremendous  shadow  of  Milton's  soul.  Prometheus  deems 
himself,  and  is,  in  the  right ;  Satan  is,  and  knows  he  is,  in  the 
wrong.  Prometheus  anticipates  ultimate  restoration ;  Satan 
expects  nothing,  and  hardly  wishes  aught  but  revenge.  Pro- 
metheus is  waited  on  by  the  multitudinous  sympathies  of  in- 
nocent immortals ;  Satan  leans  on  his  own  soul  alone,  for  the 
feeling  of  his  fallen  brethren  toward  him  is  rather  the  rever- 
ence of  fear  than  the  submission  of  love.  Prometheus  carries 
consciously  the  fate  of  the  Thunderer  in  his  hands;  Satan 
knows  the  Thunderer  has  only  to  be  provoked  sufficiently  to 
annihilate  him.  Prometheus  on  Caucasus  is  not  unvisited  or 
uncheered ;  Satan  on  Niphates  Mount  is  utterly  alone,  and 
though  miserable,  is  undaunted,  and  almost  darkens  the  sun 
by  his  stern  soliloquy.  In  one  word,  Prometheus  is  a  great, 
good  being,  mysteriously  punished;  Satan  is  a  great,  bad 
being,  reaping  with  quick  and  furious  hand  what  he  had  sown ; 
nay,  warring  with  the  whirlwind  which  from  that  sad  sowing 
of  the  wind  had  sprung. 

It  was  comparatively  easy  for  .ZEschylus  to  enlist  our  sym- 
pathies for  Prometheus,  if  once  he  were  represented  as  good 
and  injured.  But,  first,  to  represent  Satan  as  guilty;  again, 
to  wring  a  confession  of  this  from  his  own  lips ;  and  yet, 
thirdly,  to  teach  us  to  admire,  respect,  pity,  and  almost  love 
him  all  the  while,  was  a  problem  which  only  a  Milton  was  able 
either  to  state  or  to  solve. 

The  words  of  Prometheus  are  consonant  with  his  character. 
The  groans  of  a  god  should  be  melodious ;  and  not  more  so 
were  those  of  Ariel  from  the  centre  of  his  cloven  pine,  where 
he  "howled  away  twelve  winters,"  than  those  of  Prometheus 
from  his  blasted  rock.  As  Professor  Blackie  remarks,  he 
remained  silent  so  "  long  as  the  ministers  of  justice  are  doing 
their  duty."  It  were  beneath  him  to  quarrel  with  the  mere 
ministers  of  another's  pleasure.  Nor  does  he  deem  those 
myrmidons  worthy  of  hearing  the  plaints  of  his  sublime  wo. 


430  MISCELLANEOUS     SKETCHES. 


But  no  sooner  have  they  left  him  alone  than  he  finds  a  fitter 
audience  assembled  around  him  in  the  old  elements  of  nature ; 
and,  like  the  voice  of  one  of  their  own  tameless  torrents,  does 
he  break  out  into  his  famous  (miscalled)  soliloquy.  Soliloquy 
it  is  none,  for  he  was  never  less  alone  than  when  now  alone. 

"  Oh !  divine  ether,  and  swift-wing' d  winds, 
And  river-fountains,  and  of  ocean  waves 
The  multitudinous  laughter,  and  thou  earth, 
Boon  mother  of  us  all,  and  thou  bright  round 
Of  the  all-seeing  sun,  you  I  invoke ! 
Lehold  what  ignominy  of  causeless  wrong 
I  suffer  from  the  gods,  myself  a  god." 

We  are  glad  to  find  that  the  professor  uses  the  word 
"  laughter,"  instead  of  "  dimple,"  of  the  ocean  waves.  It  is 
stronger,  and  more  suited  to  the  lofty  mood  of  the  supposed 
speaker.  But  in  what  "  part  of  the  Old  Testament"  is  the 
"broad,  strong  word  laugh  retained  in  descriptions  of  nature?" 
The  floods,  indeed,  are  said,  by  a  still  bolder  image,  to  "  clap 
hands,"  but  nowhere  to  laugh.  It  is  the  Lord  in  the  heavens 
who  laughs ;  or  it  is  the  war-horse  who  laughs  at  the  shaking 
of  a  spear.  Inanimate  objects  are  never  said  to  laugh,  al- 
though it  were  but  in  unison  with  the  spirit  of  Hebrew  poetry. 
The  word  "  multitudinous"  does  not  exactly  please  us,  nor 
give  the  full  sense  of  avapid/iov.  We  are  almost  tempted  to 
coin  a  word,  and  to  translate  it  the  "  unarithmeticable  laugh- 
ter of  an  ocean's  billows." 

Lines  are  scattered  throughout  which,  in  their  strong,  pike- 
pointed  condensation,  remind  you  of  Satan's  terrible  laconic- 
isms.  The  chorus,  for  instance,  says — 

"  Dost  thou  not  blench  to  cast  such  words  about  thee  1" 

Prometheus  replies — 

"  How  should  I  fear,  who  am  a  God,  and  deathless  ?' 

Satan  says — 

"  What  matter  where,  if  /  be  still  the  same1?" 

In  the  interview  with  Hermes,  he  retains  the  dignity  of  his 
bearing  and  the  fearlessness  of  his  language.  And  how  he 
mingles  poetry  the  loftiest,  and  protest  the  most  determined, 


PROMETHEUS  BOUND  AND  UNBOUND.          431 


in  the  description  of  the  new  horrors  which  he  sees  approach- 
ing his  rock — the  "  pangs  unfelt  before" — the  hell  charged 
upon  hell — that  are  at  hand !  The  earth  begins  to  quake 
below  him.  The  sky  gets  dark  over  his  head.  The  thunder 
bellows  in  his  ears.  Hermes  leaves  him,  and  the  lightning 
succeeds,  and  "wreaths  its  fiery  curls  around  him."  The 
dust  of  a  whirwind  covers  him.  Winds  from  all  regions  meet, 
and  fight,  and  fluctuate  around  his  naked  body.  In  the  dis- 
tance, the  ocean,  laughing  no  more,  appears,  mingling  its 
angry  billows  with  the  stars.  And  as  this  many-folded  gar- 
ment of  wrath  wraps  round,  and  conceals  Prometheus  from 
view,  his  voice  is  heard  screaming  out  above  all  the  roar  of 
the  warring  elements  the  closing  words — 

"  Mighty  mother,  worshipp'd  Themis, 
Circling  Ether  that  diffusest 
Light,  a  common  joy  to  all, 
Thou  beholdest  these  iny  wrongs!" 

Shelley  was,  and  had  a  right  to  be,  a  daring  genius.  He 
had  the  threefold  right  of  power,  despair,  and  approaching 
death.  He  felt  himself  strong ;  he  had  been  driven  desper- 
ate ;  and  he  knew  that  his  time  was  short.  Hence,  as  a  poet, 
he  aimed  at  the  boldest  and  greatest  things.  He  must  leap 
into  death's  arms  from  the  loftiest  pinnacle  possible.  But  all 
his  genius,  determination,  and  feeling  of  having  no  time  to 
lose,  were  counteracted  in  their  efforts  by  a  certain  morbid 
weakness,  which  was  partly  the  result  of  bodily  suffering,  and 
partly  of  the  insulated  position  into  which  his  melancholy 
creed  had  thrown  him.  He  was  a  hero  in  a  deep  decline. 
Tall,  swift,  and  subtle,  he  wanted  body,  sinews,  and  blood. 
His  genius  resembled  a  fine  voice  cracked.  The  only  thor- 
oughly manly  and  powerful  things  he  has  written  are  some 
parts  of  the  "  Revolt  of  Islam,"  the  "  Cenci"  as  a  whole,  and 
the  commencement  and  one  or  two  passages  throughout  the 
"  Prometheus."  The  rest  of  his  writings — even  when  beauti- 
ful as  they  generally  are,  and  sincere,  as  they  are  always — arc 
more  or  less  fantastical  and  diseased.  The  "  Ceuci"  itself, 
the  most  calm  and  artistic  of  his  works,  could  never  have  been 
selected  as  a  subject  by  a  healthy  or  perfectly  sane  mind. 

"  Prometheus  Unbound"  is  the  most  ambitious  of  his  poems. 


432  MISCELLANEOUS    SKETCHES. 


But  it  was  written  too  fast.  It  was  written,  too,  in  a  state 
of  over-excitement,  produced  by  the  intoxication  of  an  Italian 
spring,  operating  upon  a  morbid  system,  and  causing  it  to 
flush  over  with  hectic  and  half-delirious  joy.  Above  all,  it 
was  written  twenty  years  too  soon,  ere  his  views  had  consoli- 
dated, and  ere  his  thought  and  language  were  cast  in  their 
final  mould.  Hence,  on  the  whole,  it  is  a  strong  and  beauti- 
ful disease.  Its  language  is  loose  and  luxuriant  as  a  "  Moe- 
nad's  hair;"  its  imagery  is  wilder  and  less  felicitous  than  in 
some  of  his  other  poems.  The  thought  is  frequently  drowned 
in  a  diarrhoaa  of  words ;  its  dialogue  is  heavy  and  prolix  ; 
and  its  lyrics  have  more  flow  of  sound  than  beauty  of  image 
or  depth  of  sentiment ; — it  is  a  false  gallop  rather  than  a  great 
kindling  race.  Compared  with  the  "  Prometheus"  of  ./Eschy- 
lus,  Shelley's  poem  is  wordy  and  diffuse;  lacks  unity  and 
simplicity ;  above  all,  lacks  whatever  human  interest  is  in  the 
Grecian  work.  Nor  has  it  the  massive  strength,  the  piled-up 
gold  and  gems,  the  barbaric  but  kingly  magnificence  of  Keats' 
"  Hyperion." 

Beauties,  of  course,  of  a  rare  order  it  possesses.  The 
opening  speech  of  Prometheus — his  conversation  with  the 
Earth — the  picture  of  the  Hours — one  or  two  of  the  cho- 
ruses— and,  above  all,  the  description  of  the  effects  of  the 
"many-folded  shell,"  in  regenerating  the  world,  are  worthy  of 
any  poet  or  pen;  and  the  whole,  in  i'ts  wasted  strength,  mixed 
with  beautiful  weakness,  resembling  a  forest  struck  with  pre- 
mature autumn,  fills  us  with  deep  regrets  that  his  life  had  not 
been  spared.  Had  he,  twenty  years  later,  a  healthier,  hap- 
pier, and  better  man,  "  clothed,  and  in  his  right  mind,"  ap- 
proached the  sublime  subject  of  the  "  Prometheus,"  no  poet, 
save  Milton  and  Keats,  was  ever  likely  to  have  so  fully  com- 
pleted the  j3Bschylean  design. 

The  last  act  of  this  drama  is  to  us  a  mere  dance  of  dark- 
ness. It  has  all  the  sound  and  semblance  of  eloquent,  musi- 
cal, and  glorying  nonsense.  But,  apart  from  the  mystic  mean- 
ings deposited  in  its  lyrics,  Shelley's  great  object  in  this  play, 
as  in  his  "  Queen  Mab"  and  "  Revolt  of  Islam,"  is  to  predict 
the  total  extinction  of  evil,  through  the  progress  and  perfection- 
ment  of  the  human  race.  Man  is  to  grow  into  the  God  of  the 
world.  We  are  of  this  opinion,  too,  provided  the  necessity  of 


PIIOMETHEUS    BOUND    AND    UNBOUND.  433 


divine  sunshine  and  showers  to  consummate  this  growth  be 
conceded.  But  Shelley's  theory  seems  very  hopeless.  We 
may  leave  it  to  the  scorching  sarcasm,  invective,  and  argument 
of  Foster,  in  his  "  Essay  on  the  Term  Romantic."  The 
Ethiop  is  to  wash  himself  white ;  the  leaper  is  to  bathe  away 
his  leprosy  in  Abana  and  Pharpar,  not  in  Jordan  !  We  will 
believe  it,  as  soon  as  we  are  convinced  that  human  philosophy 
has  of  itself  made  any  human  being  happy,  and  that  there  is 
not  something  in  man  requiring  both  a  fiercer  cautery  and  a 
robler  balm  to  cure.  "  The  nature  of  man  still  casts  '  omi- 
nous conjecture  on  the  whole  success.'  Till  that  be  changed, 
extended  plans  of  human  improvement,  laws,  new  institutions, 
and  systems  of  education,  are  only  what  may  be  called  the 
sublime  mechanics  of  depravity."  And  what,  we  may  add, 
can  change  that,  short  of  an  omnipotent  fiat  as  distinct  as  that 
which  at  first  spake  darkness  into  light — chaos  into  a  world  ? 
Of  lyrics,  and  dramas,  and  poetic  dreams,  and  philosophic 
theories,  we  have  had  enough  ;  what  we  want  is,  the  one  mas- 
ter-word of  Him  who  "  spake  with  authority,  and  not  as  the 
scribes." 

The  great  Promethean  rock  shall  be  visited  by  poet  for 
poetic  treatment  no  more  again  for  ever.  It  is  henceforth 
"  rock  in  the  wilderness,"  smitten  not  into  water,  but  into1 
eternal  sterility.  But,  atlhough  no  poet  shall  ever  seek  in  it  the 
materials  of  another  lofty  song,  yet  its  memory  shall  continue 
dear  to  all  lovers  of  genius  and  man.  Many  a  traveller,  look- 
ing northward  from  the  banks  of  the  Kur,  or  southward  from 
the  sandy  plains  of  Russia,  to  the  snowy  peaks  of  the  Cau- 
casus, shall  think  of  Prometheus,  and  try  to  shape  out  his 
writhing  figure  upon  the  storm-beaten  cliffs.  Every  admirer 
of  Grecian  or  of  British  genius  shall  turn  aside,  and  see  the 
spectacle  of  tortured  worth,  crushed  dignity,  and  vicarious 
valor,  exhibited  with  such  wonderful  force  and  verisimilitude 
by  JEschylus  and  his  follower. 

And  those  who  see,  or  think  they  see,  in  the  story  of  this  sub- 
lime, forsaken,  and  tormented  Titan — the  virtuous,  the  benevo- 
lent, the  friend  of  man — -a  faint  shadow  of  the  real  tragedy 
of  the  cross,  where  the  God-Man  was  "nailed,"  as  Prometheus 
is  said  to  have  been,  was  exposed  to  public  ignominy,  had  his 
heart  torn  by  the  vulture  of  a  world's  substitutionary  anguish, 
19 


434  MISCELLANEOUS    SKETCHES. 


and  at  last,  at  the  crisis  of  his  agony,  and  w,hile  earth,  and 
hell,  and  heaven  were  all  darkening  around  him,  cried  out, 
"  Why  hast  thou  forsaken  me  ?"  (a  fearful  question,  where 
you  dare  not  lay  the  emphasis  on  any  one,  Hut  must  on  all 
the  words),  cannot  but  feel  more  tender  and  awful  emotions 
as  they  contemplate  this  outlying  and  unacknowledged  type  of 
the  Crucified,  suspended  among  the  crags  of  the  Caucasian 
wilderness. 


SHAKESPEARE.-A  LECTURE.* 

IF  a  clergyman,  thirty  years  ago,  had  announced  a  lecture 
on  Shakspeare,  he  might,  as  a  postscript,  have  announced  the 
resignation  of  his  charge,  if  not  the  abandonment  of  his  office. 
Times  are  now  changed,  and  men  are  changed  along  with  them. 
The  late  Dr.  Hamilton  of  Leeds,  one  of  the  most  pious  and 
learned  clergymen  in  England,  has  left,  in  his  "  Nugao  Lite- 
,riae,"  a  general  paper  on  Shakspeare,  and  was  never,  so  far  as 
know,  challenged  thereanent.  And  if  you  ask  me  one  rea- 
son of  this  curious  change,  I  answer,  it  is  the  long-continued 
presence  of  the  *pirit  of  Shakspeare,  in  all  its  geniality, 
breadth,  and  power,  in  the  midst  of  our  society  and  literature. 
He  is  among  us  like  an  unseen  ghost,  coloring  our  language, 
controlling  our  impressions,  if  not  our  thoughts,  swaying  our 
imaginations,  sweetening  our  tempers,  refining  our  tastes,  puri- 
fying our  manners,  and  effecting  all  this  by  the  simple  magic 
of  his  genius,  and  through  a  medium — that  of  dramatic  writing 
and  representation — originally  the  humblest,  and  not  yet  the 
highest,  form  in  which  poetry  and  passion  have  chosen  to  ex- 
hibit themselves.  Waiving,  at  present,  the  consideration  of 
Shakspeare  in  his  form — the  dramatist,  let  us  look  at  him  now 

*  This  having  been  originally  delivered  as  a  lecture,  we  have  decided 
that  it  should  retain  the  shape.  "  Shakspeare ;  a  Sketch,"  would  look, 
and  be,  a  ludicrous  idea.  As  weH  a  mountain  in  a  flower-pot,  as  Shak- 
speare iu  a  single  sketch.  A  sketch  seeks  to  draw,  at  least,  an  outline 
of  a  whole.  From  a  lecture,  so  much  is  not  necessarily  expected. 


SHAKSPEARE.  435 


in  his  essence  —  the  poet.  But,  first,  does  any  one  ask,  What 
is  a  poet  ?  What  is  the  ideal  of  the  somewhat  indefinite,  but 
large  and  swelling  term  —  poet?  I  answer,  the  greatest  poet  is 
the  man  who  most  roundly,  clearly,  easily,  and  strikingly, 
reflects,  represents,  and  reproduces,  in  an  imaginative  form, 
his  own  sight  or  observation,  his  own  heart  or  feeling,  his  own 
history  or  experience,  his  own  memory  or  knowledge,  his  own 
imagination  or  dream  —  sight,  heart,  history,-  memory,  and 
imngination,  which,  so  far  as  they  are  faithfully  represented 
from  his  conciousness,  do  also  reflect  the  consciousness  of 
general  humanity.  The  poet  is  more  a  mirror  than  a  maker  ; 
he  may,  indeed,  unite  with  his  reflective  power  others,  such  as 
that  of  forming,  infusing  into  his  song,  and  thereby  glorifying 
a  particular  creed  or  scheme  of  speculation  ;  but,  just  as 
surely  as  a  rainbow,  rising  between  two  opposing  countries  or 
armies,  is  but  a  feeble  bulwark,  so,  the  real  power  of  poetry 
is,  not  in  conserving,  nor  in  resisting,  nor  in  supporting,  nor. 
in  destroying,  but  in  meekly  and  fully  reflecting,  and  yet 


an 
lwt 


recreating  and  beautifying  alwthings.  Poetry,  said  Aris- 
totle, is  imitation  •  this  celebrated  ephorism  is  only  true  in 
one  acceptation.  If  it  mean  that  poetry  is  in  the  first  instance 
prompted  by  a  conscious  imitation  of  the  beautiful,  which 
gradually  blossoms  into  the  higher  ehapc  of  unconscious,  resem- 
blance, we  demur.  But  if  by  imitation  is  meant  the  process 
by  which  love  for  the  beautiful  in  art  or  nature,  at  first  silent 
and  despairing,  as  the  child's  affection  for  the  star,  strengthens, 
and  strengthens  still,  till  the  admired  quality  is  transfused  into 
the  very  being  of  the  admirer,  who  then  pours  it  back  in  elo- 
quence or  in  song,  so  sweetly  and  melodiously,  that  it  seems  to 
be  flowing  from  an  original  fountain  in  his  own  breast  ;  if  this 
be  the  meaning  of  the  sage  when  he  says  that  poetry  is  imita- 
tion, he  is  unquestionably  right.  Poetry  is  just  the  saying 
Amen,  with  a  full  heart  and  a  clear  voice,  to  the  varied  sym- 
phonies of  nature,  as  they  echo  through  the  vaulted  and  solemn 
aisles  of  the  poet's  own  soul. 

It  follows,  from  this  notion  of  poetry,  that  in  it  there  is  no 
such  thing  as  absolute  origination  or  creation  ;  its  Belight 
simply  evolves  the  element  which  already  has  existed  amidst 
the  darkness  —  it  does  not  call  it  into  existence.  It  follows, 
again,  that  the  grand  distinction  between  philosophy  and 


436  MISCELLANEOUS    SKETCHES. 


poetry  is,  that  while  the  former  tries  to  trace  things  to  their 
causes,  and  to  see  them  as  a  great  naked  abstract  scheme, 
poetry  catches  them  as  they  are,  in  the  concrete,  and  with  all 
their  verdure  and  flush  about  them ;  for  even  philosophical 
truths,  ere  poetry  will  reflect  them,  must  be  personified  into 
life,  and  thus  fitted  to  stand  before  her  mirror.  The  ocean 
does  not  act  as  a  prism  to  the  sun — does  not  divide  and  analyse 
his  light — but  simply  shows  him  as  he  appears  to  her  in  the 
full  crown-royal  of  his  beams.  It  follows  still  farther,  that 
the  attitude  of  the  true  poet  is  exceedingly  simple  and  sub- 
lime. He  is  not  an  inquirer,  asking  curious  questions  at  the 
universe — not  a  tyrant  speculator,  applying  to  it  the  splendid 
torture  of  investigation ;  his  attitude  is  that  of  admiration, 
reception,  and  praise.  He  loves,  looks,  is  enlightened,  and 
shines — even  as  Venus  receives  and  renders  back  the  light  of 
her  parent  sun. 

If,  then,  the  greatest  poet  be  the  widest,  simplest  and  clear- 
est reflector  of  nature  and  man,  surely  we  may  claim  this  high 
honor  for  Shakspearc — the  d^hth  -wonder  of  the  world.  "  Of 
11  men,"  says  Dryden,  '•  hejiacl  the  largest  and  most  compre- 
Insive  soul!"  You  find  everything  included  in  him,  just  as 
you  find  that  the  blue  sky  folds  around  all  things,  and  after 
every  new  discovery  made  in  her  boundless  domains,  seems  to 
retire' 'quietly  back  into  her  own'-  greatness,  like  a  queen,  and 
to  say,  "  I  am  richer  than  all  my  possessions;"  thus  Shak- 
speare  never  suggests  the  thought  01  being  exhausted,  any 
more  than  the  sigh  of  an  zEolian  lyre,  as  the  breeze  is  spent, 
intimates  that  the  mighty  billows  of  the  air  shall  surge  no 
more,  llesponsive  as  such  a  lyre  to  all  the  sweet  or  strong 
influences  of  nature,  she  must  cease  to  speak,  ere  he  can  cease 
to  respond.  I  can  never  think  of  that  great  brow  of  his,  but 
as  a  large  lake-looking-glass,  on  which,  when  you  gaze,  you  see 
all  passions,  persons,  and  hearts  :  here,  suicides  striking  their 
own  breasts,  there,  sailors  staggering  upon  drunken  shores ; 
here,  kings  sitting  in  purple,  and  there,  clowns  making  mouths 
behind  their  backs ;  here,  demons  in  the  shape  of  man,  and 
there  angels  in  the  form  of  women  ;  here,  heroes  bending  their 
mighty  bows,  and  there,  hangmen  adjusting  their  greasy  ropes ; 
here,  witches  picking  poisons,  and  culling  infernal  simples  for 
their  caldron,  and  there,  joiners  and  weavers  enacting  their 


SHAKSPEARE.  437 


piece  of  very  tragical  mirth,  amid  the  moonlight  of  the  "  Mid" 
summer  Night's  Dream;"  here  statesmen  uttering  their  an- 
cient saws,  and  there  watchmen  finding  "  modern  instances" 
amid  the  belated  revellers  of  the  streets ;  here,  misanthropes 
cursing  their  day,  and  there,  pedlars  making  merry  with  the 
lasses  and  lads  of  the  village  fair ;  here,  Mooncalfs,  like  Cali- 
ban, throwing  forth  eloquent  curses  and  blasphemy,  and  there, 
maidens,  like  Miranda,  "sole-sitting"  by  summer  seas,  beauti- 
ful as  foam-bells  of  the  deep  ;  here,  fairies  dancing  like  motes 
of  glory  across  the  stage,  and  there,  hush  !  it  is  the  grave  that 
has  yawned,  and,  lo  !  the  buried  majesty  of  Denmark  has  join- 
ed the  motley  throng,  which  pauses  for  a  moment  to  tremble 
at  his  presence.  Such  the  spectacle  presented  on  that  great 
mirror  !  How  busy  it  is,  and  yet  how  still !  How  melan- 
choly, and  yet  how  mirthful !  Magical  as  a  dream,  and  yet 
sharp  and  distinct  as  a  picture !  How  fluctuating,  yet  how 
fixed !  "It  trembles,  but  it  cannot  pass  away."  It  is  the 
world- — the  world  of  every  age — the  miniature  of  the  universe  ! 
The  times  of  Shakspeare  require  a  minute's  notice  in  our 
hour's  analysis  of  his  genius.  They  were  times  of  a  vast  up- 
heaving in  the  public  mind.  Protestantism,  that  strong  man- 
child,  had  newly  been  born  on  the  Continent,  and  was  making 
wild  work  in  his  cradle.  Popery,  the  ten-horned  monster,  was 
dying,  but  dying  hard;  but  over  England  there  lay  what 
might  be  called  a  "  dim  religious  light" — being  neither,  the  gross 
darkness  of  mediaeval  Catholicism,  nor  the  naked  glare  of  Non- 
conformity— a  light  highly  favorable  to  the  exercise  of  imagin- 
ation— in  which  dreams  seem  realised,  and*  in  which  realities 
were  softened  with  the  haze  of  dreams.  The  Book  of  G-od 
had  been  brought  forth,  like  Joseph  from  his  dungeon,  freed 
from  prison  attire  and  looks — although  it  had  not  yet,  like 
him,  mounted  its  chariot  of  general  circulation,  and  been  car- 
ried in  triumphal  progress  through  the  land.  The  copies  of 
the  Scriptures,  for  the  most  part,  were  confined  to  the  libra- 
ries of  the  learned,  or  else  chained  in  churches.  Conceive  the 
impetus  given  to  the  poetical  genius  of  the  country,  by  the 
sudden  discovery  of  this  spring  of  loftiest  poetry — conceive  it 
by  supposing  that  Shakspeare's  works  had  been  buried  for 
ages,  and  been  dug  up  now.  Literature  in  general  had  reviv- 
ed ;  and  the  soul  of  man,  like  an  eagle  newly  fledged,  and 


438  MISCELLANEOUS    SKETCHES. 


looking  from  the  verge  of  her  nest,  was  smelling  from  afar 
many  a  land  of  promise,  and  many  a  field  of  victory.  Add  to 
this,  that  a  New  World  had  recently  been  discovered ;  and  if 
California  and  Australia  have  come  over  us  like  a  summer's 
(golden)  cloud,  and  made  not  only  the  dim  eye  of  the  old 
miser  gleam  with  joy,  and  his  hand,  perhaps,  relax  its  hold  of 
present,  in  the  view  of  prospective  gold,  but  made  many  a 
young  bosom,  too,  leap  at  the  thought  of  adventure  upon 
those  marvellous  shores — and  woven,  as  it  were,  a  girdle  of 
virgin  gold  round  the  solid  globe — what  must  have  been  the 
impulse  and  the  thrill,  when  first  the  bars  of  ocean  were  bro- 
ken up,  when  all  customary  landmarks  fled  away,  like  the 
islands  of  the  Apocalyptic  vision,  and  when  in  their  room 
a  thousand  lovely  dreams  seemed  retiring,  and  beckoning  as 
they  retired,  toward  isles  of  palms,  and  valleys  of  enchant- 
ment, and  mountains  ribbed  with  gold,  and  seas  of  perfect 
peace  and  sparkling  silver,  and  immeasurable  savannahs  and 
forests  hid  by  the  glowing  west;  and  when,  month  after 
month,  travelers  and  sailors  were  returning  to  testify  by  their 
tales  of  wonder,  that  such  dreams  were  true,  must  not  such  an 
ocean  of  imaginative  influence  have  deposited  a  rich  residuum 
of  genius  ?  And  that  verily  it  did,  the  names  of  four  men  be- 
longing to  this  period  are  enough  to  prove ;  these  are,  need  I 
say?  Edmund  Spenser,  Walter  Raleigh,  Francis  Bacon,  and 
William  Shakspeare. 

The  Life  of  Shakspeare  I  do  not  seek  to  write,  and  do  not 
profess  to  understand,  after  all  that  has  been  written  regard- 
ing it.  Still  he  seems  to  me  but  a  shade,  without  shape,  limit, 
or  local  habitation ;  having  nothing  but  power,  beauty,  and 
grandeur.  I  cannot  reconcile  him  to  life,  present  or  past. 
Like  a  Brownie,  he  has  done  the  work  of  his  favorite  house- 
hold, unheard  and  unseen.  His  external  history  is,  in  his  own 
language,  a  blank ;  his  internal,  a  puzzle,  save  as  we  may  du- 
biously gather  it  from  the  escapes  of  his  Sonnets,  and  the 
masquerade  of  his  Plays. 

"  0  Cuckoo,  shall  I  call  thee  bird, 
Or  but  a  wandering  voice  1" 

A  munificent  and  modest  benefactor,  he  has  knocked  at  the 
door  of  the  human  family  at  night;  thrown  in  inestimable 


SHAKSPEARE.  439 


wealth  as  if  he  had  done  a  guilty  thing ;  and  the  sound  of  his 
feet  dying  away  in  the  distance  is  all  the  tidings  he  has  given 
of  himself. 

Indeed,  so  deep  still  are  the  uncertainties  surrounding  the 
history  of  Shakspeare,  that  I  sometimes  wonder  that  the  pro- 
cess applied  by  Strauss  to  the  Life  of  our  Saviour  has  not 
been  extended  to  his.  A  Life  of  Shakspeare,  on  this  worthy 
model,  would  be  a  capital  exercise  for  some  aspiring  sprig  of 
Straussism ! 

I  pass  to  speak  of  the  qualities  of  his  genius.  First  of 
these,  I  name  a  quality  to  which  I  have  already  alluded — his 
universality.  He  belongs  to  all  ages,  all  lands,  all  ranks,  all 
faiths,  all  professions,  all  characters,  and  all  intellects.  And 
why  ?  because  his  eye  pierced  through  all  that  was  conven- 
tional, and  fastened  on  all  that  was  eternal  in  man.  He  knew 
that  in  humanity  there  was  one  heart,  one  nature,  and  that 
"  G-od  had  made  of  one  blood  all  nations  who  dwell  on  the 
face  of  the  earth."  He  saw  the  same  heart  palpitating 
through  a  myriad  faces — the  same  nature  shining  amid  all  va- 
rieties of  customs,- manners,  languages,  and  laws — the  same 
blood  rolling  red. and  warm  below  innumerable  bodies,  dresses 
and  forms.  It  was  not,  mark  you,  the  universality  of  indif- 
ference— it  was  not  that  he  loved  all  beings  alike — it  was  not 
that  he  liked  lago  as  .well  as  Imogen,  Bottom  or  Bardolph  as 
well  as  Hamlet  or  Othello  ;  but  that  he  saw,  and  showed,  and 
loved,  in  proportion  to  its  degree,  so  much  of  humanity  as  all 
possessed.  Nature,  too,  he  had  watched  with  a  wide  yet  keen 
eye.  Alike  the  spur  of  the  rooted  pine-tree  and  the  "  grey" 
gleam  of  the  willow  leaf  drooping  over  the  death-stream  of 
Ophelia — (he  was  the  first  in  poetry,  says  Hazlitt,  to  notice  that 
the  leaf  is  grey  only  on  the  side  which  bends  down) — the  nest 
of  the  temple-haunting  martlet  with  his  "  loved  mansionry," 
and  the  eagle  eyrie  which  "  buildeth  on  the  cedar's  top,  and 
dallies  with  the  wind  and  scorn's  the  sun" — the  forest  of  Ar- 
den,  and  the  "  blasted  heath  of  Forres" — the  "  still  vexed  Ber- 
moothes,  and  the  woods  of  Crete" — "  the  paved  fountains,''' 
"  rushing  brooks,"  "  pelting  rivers,"  "  the  beached  margents  of 
the  sea,"  "  sweet  summer  buds,"  "  hoary  headed-frosts," 
"  childing  autumn,"  "  angry  winter,"  the  "sun  robbing  the 
vast  sea,"  and  the  "  m^anJier  pale  fire  snatching  from  the  sun !" 


440  MISCELLANEOUS    SKETCHES. 


"  Flowers  of  all  hues — 
Hot  lavender,  mints,  savory,  marjoram, 
The  marigold  that  goes  to  bed  with  the  sun, 
And  with  him  rises  weeping,  daffodils 
That  come  before  the  swallow  dares,  and  take 
The  winds  of  March  with  beauty ;  violets  dim 
But  sweeter  than  the  lids  of  Juno's  eyes, 
Or  Cytherea's  breath — pale  primroses, 
That  die  unmarried  ere  they  can  behold 
Bright  Phoebus  in  his  strength — 

bold  oxlips  and 

The  Crown,  Imperial — lilies  of  all  kinds'7 — 

such  are  a  few  of  the  natural  objects  which  the  genius  of  Shak- 
speare  has  transplanted  into  his  own  garden,  and  covered  with 
the  dew  of  immortality.  He  sometimes  lingers  beside  such 
lovely  things,  but  more  frequently  he  touches  them  as  he 
is  hurrying  on  to  an  object.  He  paints  as  does  the  lightning, 
which  while  rushing  to  its  aim,  shows  in  fiery  relief  all  inter- 
mediate objects.  Like  an  arrowy  river,  his  mark  is  the  sea, 
but  every  cloud,  tree,  and  tower  is  rejected  on  its  way,  and 
serves  to  beautify  and  to  dignify  the  waters.  Frank,  all-em- 
bracing, and  unselecting  is  the  motion  of  Hjs  genius.  Like  the 
sun-rays,  which,  secure  in  their  own  purity«id  directness,  pass 
fearlessly  through  all  deep,  dark,  intricate,*!  unholy  places — 
equally  illustrate  the  crest  of  a  serpent  aucbfte  wing  of  a  bird, 
pause  on  the  summit  of  an  ant-hillock  as  well  as  ou  the  brow 
of  Mont  Blanc — take  up  as  a  little  tbiijg  alike  the  crater  of 
the  volcano  and  the  shed  cone  of  the  pine,  and  after  they  have, 
in  one  wide  charity,  embraced  all  shaped  and  sentient  things, 
expend  their  waste  strength  and  beauty  upon  the  inane  space 
beyond — thus  does  the  imagination  of  Shakspeare  count  no 
subject  or  object  too  low,  and  none  too  high,  for  its  compre- 
hensive and  incontrollable  sweep. 

I  have  named  impersonality,  as  his  next  quality.  The  term 
seems  strange  and  rare — the  thing  is  scarcer  still :  I  mean  by 
it  that  Shakspeare,  when  writing,  thought  of  nothing  but  his 
subject,  never  of  himself.  Snatching  from  an  Italian  novel, 
or  an  ill-translated  Plutarch's  lives,  the  facts  of  his  play,  his 
only  question  was,  Can  these  dry  bones  live  ?  How  shall  I 
impregnate  them  with  force,  and  make  them  fully  express  the 
meaning  and  beauty  which  they  contain  ?  Many  writers  set 
to  work  in  a  very  different  style :  one  in  all  his  writings  wishes 


SHEKSPEARE.  44 1 


to  magnify  his  own  powers,  and  his  solitary  bravo  is  heard  re- 
sounding at  the  close  of  every  paragraph.  Another  wishes  to 
imitate  another  writer — a  base  ambition,  pardonable  only  in 
children.  A  third,  scorning  slavish  imitation,  wishes  to  emu- 
late some  one  school  or  class  of  authors.  A  fourth  writes  de- 
liberately and  professedly  ad  captandum  vvlgus.  A  fifth, 
worn  to  dregs,  is  perpetually  wishing  to  imitate  his  former 
doings,  like  a  child  crying  to  get  yesterday  back  again.  Shak- 
speare,  when  writing,  thought  no  more  of  himself,  or  other 
authors,  than  the  Sun  when  shining  thinks  of  Sirius,  of  the 
stars  composing  the  Great  Bear,  or  of  his  own  proud  array  of 
beams. 

This  unconsciousness,  or  impersonality,  I  have  always  held 
to  be  the  highest  style  of  genius.  I  am  aware,  indeed,  of  a 
subtle  objection.  It  has  been  said  by  a  high  authority — John 
Sterling — that  men  of  genius  are  conscious,  not  of  what  is  pe- 
culiar in  the  individual,  but  of  what  is  universal  in  the  race ;  of 
what  characterises,  not  a  man,  but  man ;  not  of  their  own 
individual  genius,  but  of  the  Great  Spirit  moving  within  their 
minds.  Yet  what  in  reality  is  this  but  the  unconsciousness  for 
which  the  author,  to  whom  Sterling  is  replying,  contends. 
When  we  say  that  men  of  genius,  in  their  highest  moods,  are 
unconscious,  we  mean,  not  that  these  men  become  the  mere 
tubes  through  which  a  foreign  influence  descends,  but  that  cer- 
tain emotions  or  ideas  so  fill  and  possess  them,  as  to  produce 
temporary  forgetfulness  of  themselves,  save  as  the  passive 
though  intelligent  instruments  of  the  feeling  or  the  thought. 
It  is  true  that  afterwards  self  may  suggest  the  reflection — the 
fact  that  we  have  been  selected  to  receive  and  convey  such 
melodies  proves  our  breadth  and  fitness — it  is  from  the  oak, 
not  the  reed,  that  the  wind  elicits  its  deepest  music;  but,  in 
the  first  place,  this  thought  never  takes  place  at  the  same  time 
with  the  true  afflatus,  and  is  almost  inconsistent  with  its  pre- 
sence— it  is  a  mere  after  inference; — an  inference,  secondly, 
which  is  not  always  made ; — nay,  thirdly,  an  inference  which 
is  often  rejected,  when  the  prophet,  off  the  stool,  feels  tempted 
to  regard  with  suspicion  or  shuddering  disgust  the  result  of 
his  raptured  hour  of  inspiration.  Milton  seems  to  have  shrunk 
back  at  the  retrospect  of  the  height  he  had  reached  in  the 
"  Paradise  Lost,"  and  preferred  his  "  Paradise  Regained." 
19* 


442  MISCELLANEOUS    SKETCHES. 


Shakspeare,  having  written  his  tragic  miracles  under  a  more 
entire  self-abandonment,  became  in  his  sonnets,  owing  to  a  re- 
flex act  of  sagacity,  aware  of  what  feats  he  had  done.  Bun- 
yan  is  carried  on,  through  all  the  stages  of  his  immortal  pil- 
grimage, like  a  child  in  the  leading-strings  of  her  nurse,  but, 
after  looking  back  upon  its  contemplated  course,  begins,  with  all 
the  harmless  vanity  of  a  child  (see  the  prefatory  poem  to  the 
second  part),  to  crow  over  the  achievement.  Burns,  while 
composing  "  Tarn  o'  Shanter,"  felt  little  else  than  the  animal 
rapture  of  the  excitement ;  it  dawned  on  him  afterwards  that 
he  had  produced  his  finest  poem.  Thus  all  gifted  spirits  do 
best  when  they  know  not  what  they  do.  The  boy  Tell  was 
great, 

"  Nor  knew  how  great  he  was." 

I  mention  next  his  humanity.  It  was  said  of  Burns,  that 
if  you  had  touched  his  hand  it  would  have  burned  yours. 
And  although  Shakspeare,  bein.^  a  far  broader  and  greater, 
was,  consequently,  a  calmer  man,  yet  I  would  not  have  advised 
any  very  timid  person  to  have  made  the  same  experiment  with 
him.  Poor  Hartley  Coleridge  wrote  a  clever  paper,  in  "  Black- 
wood,"  entitled  "  Shakspeare  a  Tory  and  a  Gentleman ;"  I 
wish  some  one  had  answered  it,  under  the  title,  "  Shakspeare 
a  Kadical  and  a  Man."  A  man's  heart  beats  in  his  every 
line.  He  loves,  pities,  feels  for,  as  well  as  with,  the  meanest 
of  his  fellow  "  human  mortals."  He  addresses  men  as  bro- 
thers, and  as  brothers  have  they  responded  to  his  voice. 

I  need  scarcely  speak  of  his  simplicity.  He  was  a  child  as 
well  as  a  man.  His  poetry,  in  the  language  of  Pitt,  comes 
"  sweetly  from  nature."  It  is  a  "  gum"  oozing  out  without 
effort  or  consciousness  :  occasionally,  indeed  (for  I  do  not,  like 
the  Germans,  believe  in  the  infallibility  of  Shakspeare,)  he  con- 
descends to  indite  a  certain  swelling,  rumbling  bombast, 
especially  when  he  is  speaking  through  the  mouth  of  kings ; 
but  even  his  bombast  comes  rolling  out  with  an  ease  and  a 
gusto,  a  pomp  and  prodigality,  which  are  quite  delightful. 
Shakspeare's  nonsense  is  like  no  other  body's  nonsense.  It  is 
always  the  nonsence  of  a  great  genius.  A  dignitary  of  the 
Church  of  England  went  once  to  hear  Eobert  Hall.  After 
listening  with  delight  to  that  great  preacher,  he  called  at  hia 


SHAKSPEAIIE.  443 


house.  Ho  found  him  lying  on  the  floor,  with  his  children 
performing  somersets  over  him.  He  lifted  up  his  hands  in 
wonder,  and  exclaimed,  "  Is  that  the  great  Robert  Hall  ?" — 
"  Oh,"  replied  Hall,  "  I  have  all  my  nonsense  out  of  the 
pulpit,  you  have  all  yours  in  it."  So  Shakspeare,  after  having 
done  a  giant's  work,  could  take  a  giant's  recreation ;  and  were 
he  returning  to  earth,  would  nearly  laugh  himself  dead  again, 
at  the  portentous  attempts  of  some  of  his  critics  to  prove  his 
nonsense  sense,  his  blemishes  beauties,  and  his  worst  puns  fine 
wit! 

The  subtlety  of  Shakspeare  is  one  of  his  most  wonderful 
qualities.  Coleridge  used  to  say,  that  he  was  more  of  a  phi- 
losopher than  a  poet.  His  penetration  into  motives,  his  dis- 
cernment of  the  most  secret  thoughts  and  intents  of  the  heart, 
his  discrimination  of  the  delicate  shades  of  character,  the  man- 
ner in  which  he  makes  little  traits  tell  large  tales,  the  com- 
plete grasp  he  has  of  all  his  characters,  whom  he  lifts  up  and 
down  like  ninepins,  the  innumerable  paths  by  which  he  reaches 
similar  results,  the  broad,  comprehensive  maxims  on  life,  man- 
ners, and  morals,  which  he  has  scattered  in  such  profusion 
over  his  writings,  the  fact,  that  he  never  repeats  a  thought, 
figure,  or  allusion,  the  wonderful  art  he  has  of  identifying  him- 
self with  all  varieties  of  humanity — all  proclaim  the  inexhausti- 
ble and  infinite  subtlety  of  his  genius,  and  when  taken  in  con- 
nection with  its  power  and  loftiness,  render  him  the  prodigy 
of  poets  and  of  men.  I  once,  when  a  student,  projected  a 
series  of  essays,  entitled  "  Sermons  on  Shakspeare,"  taking  for 
my  texts  some  of  those  profound  and  far-reaching  sentences, 
which  abound  in  him,  where  you  have  the  fine  gold,  which. is 
the  staple  of  his  works,  collected  in  little  knots,  or  nuggets  of 
thick  gnarled  magnificence.  It  was  this  quality  in  him  which 
made  a  French  author  say,  that,  were  she  condemned  to  select 
three  volumes  for  her  whole  library,  the  three  would  be  Ba- 
con's Essays,  the  Bible,  and  Shakspeare.  You  can  never  open 
a  page  of  his  dramas  without  being  startled  at  the  multitude 
of  sentences  which  have  been,  and  are  perpetually  being, 
quoted.  The  proverbs  of  Shakspeare,  were  they  selected, 
would  be  only  inferior  to  the  proverbs  of  Solomon. 

When  I  name  purity  as  another  quality  of  this  poet,  I  may 
be  thought  paradoxical.  And  yet,  when  I  remember  his  peri- 


444  MISCELLANEOUS    SKETCHES. 


od,  his  circumstances,  the  polluted  atmosphere  which  ho 
breathed;  when  I  compare  his  writings  with  those  of  contem- 
porary dramatists ;  when  I  weigh  him  in  the  scales  with 
many  of  our  modern  authors ;  and  when  I  remember  that  his 
writings  never  seek  to  corrupt  the  imagination,  to  shake  the 
principles,  or  to  influence  the  passions  of  men,  I  marvel  how 
thoroughly  his  genius  has  saved  him,  harmless,  amid  formida- 
ble difficulties,  and  say,  that  Marina  in  his  own  "  Pericles," 
did  not  come  forth  more  triumphantly  scathless,  than  does  her 
poet.  Let  those  who  prate  of  Shakspeare's  impurity  first  of 
all  read  him  candidly  ;  secondly,  read,  if  they  can,  Massinger, 
or  Beaumont  and  Fletcher ;  and  thirdly,  if  they  have  Bowd- 
ler's  contemptible  "  Family  Shakspeare,"  fling  it  into  the  fire, 
and  take  back  the  unmutilated  copy  to  their  book-shelves  and 
their  bosoms.  The  moonlight  is  not  contaminated  by  shin- 
ing on  a  dunghill,  and  neither  is  the  genius  of  Shakspeare  by 
touching  transiently,  on  its  way  to  higher  regions,  upon  low, 
loathsome  or  uncertain  themes.  His  language  is  sometimes 
coarse,  being  that  of  his  age ;  his  spirit  belonging  to  no  age 
(would  I  could  say  the  same  of  Burns,  Byron,  Moore,  and 
Eugene  Sue),  is  always  clean,  healthy,  and  beautiful. 

His  imagination  and  fancy  are  nearly  equal,  and,  like  two 
currents  of  air,  are  constantly  interpenetrating.  They  seem 
twins — the  one  male,  the  other  female.  Not  only  do  both 
stand  ever  ready  to  minister  to  the  subtlest  and  deepest  mo- 
tions of  his  intellect,  and  all  the  exigencies  of  his  plots  (like 
spray,  which  decorates  the  river,  when  running  under  ground, 
as  well  as  when  shining  in  the  sunlight),  but  he  has,  besides, 
committed  himself  to  several  distinct  trials  of  the  strength  of 
both.  The  caldron  in  "  Macbeth"  stands  up  an  unparalleled 
collection  of  dark  and  powerful  images,  all  shining  as  if  shown  in 
hell-fire,  and  accompanied  by  a  dancing,  mirthful  measure,  which 
adds  unspeakably  to  their  horror.  It  is  as  though  a  sentence 
of  death  were  given  forth  in  doggerel.  And,  for  light  and 
fanciful  figures,  we  may  take  either  Titania's  speech  to  the 
Fairies,  or  the  far-famed  description  of  Queen  Mab  by  Mercu- 
tio.  In  these  passages,  artistic  aim  is  for  a  season  abandon- 
ed. A  single  faculty,  like  a  horse  from  a  chariot  stud,  breaks 
loose,  and  revels  and  riots  in  the  fury  of  its  power. 

Shakspeare's  wit  and  humor  are  bound  together  in  general 


SHAKSPEAIIE.  445 


6y  the  amiable  band  of  good-nature.  What  a  contrast  to 
Swift !  He  loathes  ;  Shakspeare,  at  the  worst,  hates.  His  is 
the  slavering  and  ferocious  ire  of  a  maniac ;  Shakspeare's  that 
of  a  man.  Swift  broods  like  their  shadow  over  the  festering 
sores  and  the  moral  ulcers  of  humanity ;  Shakspeare  touches 
them  with  a  ray  of  poetry,  which  beautifies,  if  it  cannot  heal. 
"  G-ulliver"  is  the  day-book  of  a  fiend  ;  "  Timon"  is  the  mag- 
nificent outbreak  of  an  injured  angel.  His  wit,  how  fertile, 
quick,  forgetive !  Congreve  and  Sheridan  are  poor  and  forced 
in  the  comparison.  How  long  they  used  to  sit  hatching  some 
clever  conceit ;  and  what  a  cackling  they  made  when  it  had 
chipped  the  shell !  Shakspeare  threw  forth  a  Mercutio  or  a 
Falstaff  at  once,  each  embodying  in  himself  a  world  of  laugh- 
ter, and  there  an  end.  His  humor,  how  broad,  rich,  subtle, 
powerful,  and  full  of  genius  and  geniality,  it  is  !  Why,  Bar- 
dolph's  red  nose  eclipses  all  the  dramatic  characters  that  have 
succeeded.  Ancient  Pistol  himself  shoots  down  the  whole  of 
the  Farquhars,  Wycherleys,  Sheridans,  Goldsmiths,  and  Col- 
mans,  put  together.  Dogberry  is  the  prince  of  Donkeys,  past, 
present,  and  to  come.  When  shall  we  ever  have  such  another 
tinker  as  Christopher  Sly  ?  Sir  Andrew  Aguecheek  ?  the 
very  name  makes  you  quake  with  laughter.  And  like  a  vast 
sirloin  of  English  roast  beef,  rich  and  dripping,  lies  along  the 
mighty  Falstaff,  with  humor  oozing  out  of  every  corner  and 
cranny  of  his  vast  corporation. 

Byron  describes  man  as  a  pendulum,  between  a  smile  and 
tear.  Shakspeare,  the  representative  of  humanity,  must  weep 
as  well  as  laugh,  and  his  tears,  characteristically,  must  be 
large  and  copious.  What  variety,  as  well  as  force,  in  his  pa- 
thetic figures  !  Here  pines  in  the  center  of  the  forest  the  mel- 
ancholy Jacques,  musing  tenderly  upon  the  sad  pageant  of 
human  life,  finding  sermons  in  stones,  although  not  "  good  in 
everything,"  now  weeping  beside  a  weeping  deer,  and  now 
bursting  out  into  elfish  laughter,  at  the  "  fool"  he  found  in  the 
forest.  Here  walks  and  talks,  in  her  guilty  and  desperate 
sleep,  the  Fiend  Queen  of  Scotland,  lighted  on  her  way  by  the 
fire  that  never  shall  be  quenched,  which  is  already  kindled 
around  her,  seeking  in  vain  to  sweeten  her  "little"  hand,  on  which 
there  is  a  spot  with  which  eternity  must  deal,  and  yet  moving 
you  to  weep  for  her  as  you  tremble.  Here  turns  away  from  men 


446  MISCELLANEOUS    SKETCHES. 


for  ever  the  haughty  Timon,  seeking  his  low  grave  beside,  and 
his  only  mourner  in,  the  everlasting  brine  of  the  sea.  Here 
the  noble  Othello,  mad  with  imaginary  wrongs,  bends  over  the 
bed  of  Desdemona,  and  kisses  ere  he  kills  the  purest  and  best 
of  women.  Here  Juliet  awakes  too  late  for  her  fatal  sleep, 
and  finds  a  dead  lover  where  she  had  hoped  to  find  a  living 
husband.  Here  poor  Ophelia,  garlanded  with  flowers,  sinks 
into  her  pool  of  death — a,  pool  which  might  again  and  again 
have  been  replenished  from  the  tears  which  her  story  has 
started.  And  here,  once  king  of  England,  but  now  king  of 
the  miserable  in  every  clime — once  wise  in  everything  but 
love,  now  sublime  in  madness — once  wearing  a  royal  coronet, 
now  crowned  with  the  howling  blackness  of  heaven  above  his 
grey  dishevelled  locks — once  clad  in  purple,  now  wreathing 
around  him  fantastic  wreaths  of  flowers — it  is  Lear  who  cries 
aloud — 

"  Ye  heavens  ! 

If  ye  do  love  old  men,  if  your  sweet  sway 
Hallow  obedience,  if  yourselves  arc  old, 
Make  it  your  cause — avenge  me  of  my  daughters." 

That  Shakspeare  is  the  greatest  genius  the  world  ever  saw, 
is  acknowledged  now  by  all  sane  men ;  for  even  France  has, 
at  last,  after  many  a  reluctant  struggle,  fallen  into  the  pro- 
cession of  his  admirers.  But  that  Shakspeare  also  is  out  of 
all  sight  and  measure  the  finest  artist  that  ever  constructed  a 
poem  or  drama,  is  a  less  general,  and  yet  a  growing  belief. 
By  no  mechanical  rules,  indeed,  can  his  works  be  squared. 
But  tried,  as  all  great  works  should  be,  by  principles  of  their 
own — principles  which  afterwards  control  and  create  their  true 
criticism  (for  it  is  the  office  of  the  critic  to  find  out  and  ex- 
pound the  elements  which  mingled  in  the  original  inspiration — 
not  to  test  them  by  a  preconceived  and  arbitrary  standard), 
and  when,  especially,  you  remember  the  object  contemplated 
by  the  poet,  that  of  mirroring  the  motly  life  of  man,  his  works 
appear  as  wonderful  in  execution  as  in  conception.  Their 
very  faults  are  needed  to  prove  them  human,  otherwise  their 
excellencies  would  have  classed  them  with  the  divine. 

It  is  amusing  to  read  the  criticism  which  the  eighteeth  cen- 
tury passed  upon  Shakspeare.  They  did  not,  in  fact,  know 
very  well  what  to  make  of  him.  They  walked  and  talked 


SHAKSPEARE.  447 


"  about  him.  and  about  him."  I  am  reminded  of  the  aston- 
ishment felt  by  the  inhabitants  of  Lilliput  at  the  discovery  of 
Gulliver,  the  "  Man  Mountain."  One  critic  mounted  on  q, 
ladder  to  get  a  nearer  view  of  the  phenomenon.  Another 
peered  at  him  through  a  telescope.  A  third  insisted  on  strap- 
ping him  down  by  the  ligatures  of  art.  A  fourth  measured 
his  size  geometrically.  But  all  agreed,  that  although  much 
larger,  he  was  much  coarser  and  uglier  than  themselves ;  and 
expressed  keen  regret  that  so  much  strength  was  not  united 
with  more  symmetry.  He  seemed  to  them  a  monster,  not  a 
man.  Voltaire,  with  the  dauntless  effrontery  of  a  monkey, 
called  him  an  enormous  dunghill,  with  a  few  pearls  scattered 
upon  it — unconsciously  thereby  re-enacting  the  part  of  Dog- 
berry, and  degrading  from  the  monkey  into  the  ass. 

In  our  day  all  this  is  changed.  Shakspeare  no  more  seems 
a  large  lucky  barbarian,  with  wondrous  powers  growing  wild 
and  straggling,  but  a  wise  man,  wisely  managing  the  most 
magnificent  gifts.  His  art — whether  you  regard  it  as  mould- 
ing his  individual  periods,  or  as  regulating  his  plays — seems 
quite  as  wonderful  as  his  genius.  Men  criticise  now  even  the 
successful  battles  of  Napoleon,  and  seek  very  learnedly  to 
show  that  he  ought  not  to  have  gained  them,  and  that  by  all 
the  rules  of  war  it  was  very  ridiculous  in  him  to  gain  them. 
But  Shakspeare's  great  victories  can  stand  every  test,  and  are 
seen  not  only  to  be  triumphs  of  overwhelming  genius,  but  of 
consummate  skill. 

Ere  glancing  at  his  plays  individually,  I  would,  first  of  all, 
try  to  divide  them  under  various  classes.  The  division  which 
occurs  to  me  as  the  best,  is  that  of  his  metaphysical,  his  imagi- 
native, his  meditative,  his  passionate,  his  historical,  and  his 
comic  dramas.  His  metaphysical  plays  are,  properly  speak- 
ing, only  two — "  Macbeth"  and  "  King  Lear."  I  call  them 
metaphysical,  not  in  the  common  sense,  but  in  Shakspeare's 
own  sense  of  the  word.  Lady  Macbeth  says — 

"Hie  tliee  hither, 

That  I  may  pour  my  spirits  in  thine  ear, 
And  chastise  with  the  valour  of  my  tongue, 
All  that  impedes  thee  from  the  golden  round, 
Which  fate  and  metaphysical  aid  doth  seem, 
To  have  thee  crown'd  withal." 


448  MISCELLANEOUS    SKETCHES. 


Metaphysics  means  here  an  agency  beyond  nature,  and  at  the 
same  time  evil.  Now,  in  "  Macbeth,"  it  is  this  metaphysical 
power  which,  through  the  witches,  controls  like  destiny  the 
whole  progress  of  the  play.  In  "  Lear,"  not  only  does  des- 
tiny brood  over  the  whole,  but  the  hell-dog  of  madness — 
which  in  Shakspeare  is  metaphysical  power — is  let  loose.  In 
some  other  plays,  it  is  true,  he  introduces  superhuman  agents, 
but  in  these  two  alone  all  the  springs  seem  moved  by  a  dark 
unearthly  power.  By  his  imaginative  plays,  I  mean  those 
where  his  principal  object  is  to  indulge  that  one  stupendous 
faculty  of  his.  Such  are  the  "Tempest" and  the  "  Midsum- 
mer Night's  Dream."  These  are  selections  from  his  dream- 
book.  By  his  meditative  plays,  I  mean  those  in  which  inci- 
dent, passion,  and  poetry  are  made  subservient  to  the  work- 
ings of  subtle  and  restless  reflection.  Such  are  "  Hamlet," 
"  Timon,"  and  "Measure  for  Measure."  His  passionate 
plays — for  example  "  Othello"  and  "  Romeo  and  Juliet" — 
are  designed  to  paiut,  whether  in  simple  or  compound  form, 
whether  stationary,  progressive,  or  interchanging,  the  passions 
of  humanity.  His  historical  and  comic  plays  explain  them- 
selves. All  his  plays,  indeed,  have  more  or  less  of  all  those 
qualities,  "floating,  mingling,  interweaving."  But  I  have 
thus  arranged  them  according  to  the  master  element  and  pur- 
pose of  each. 

Let  me  select  one  of  the  different  classes  for  rapid  analysis. 
And  I  feel  myself,  first  of  all,  attracted  toward  the  wierd 
and  haggard  tragedy  of  "  Macbeth."  And,  first,  in  this  play 
we  must  notice  again  its  metaphysical  character.  A  night- 
mare from  hell  presses  down  all  the  story  and  all  the  charac- 
ters. From  the  commencement  of  the  race  to  its  close,  there 
is  a  fiend — the  fiend  sitting  behind  the  rider,  and  at  every 
turn  of  the  dark  descending  way  you  hear  his  suppressed  or 
his  resounding  laughter.  All  is  out  of  nature.  The  ground 
reels  below  you.  The  play  is  a  caldron,  mixed  of  such  ingre- 
dients as  the  Wierd  Sisters,  a  blasted  heath,  an  air-drawn  dag- 
ger, the  blood-boltered  ghost  of  a  murdered  man  rising  to  sup 
with  his  murderer,  lamentings  heard  in  the  air,  strange 
screams  of  death,  horses  running  wild  and  eating  each  other, 
a  desperate  king  asking  counsel  at  the  pit  of  Acheron,  an 
armed  head,  a  bloody  child,  a  child  crowned  and  with  a  tree 


SHAKSPEARE.  449 


in  his  hand,  and  eight  kings  rising  from  the  abyss  to  answer 
his  questions,  a  moving  forest,  a  sleep-walking  and  suicide 
queen — such  are  some  of  the  ingredients  which  a  cloudy  hand 
seems  to  shed  into  the  broth,  till  it  bubbles  over  with  terror 
and  blood.  It  is  not  a  tragedy,  but  a  collection  of  tragedies — 
the  death  of  Duncan  being  one,  that  of  Banquo  another,  that 
of  Macduff's  family  another,  that  of  Lady  Macbeth  another, 
and  that  of  Macbeth  himself  a  fifth.  And  yet  the  master 
has  so  managed  them,  by  varying  their  character  and  circum- 
stances, and  relieving  them  by  touches  of  imagination,  that 
there  is  no  repletion — we  "  sup,"  but  not  "  full,"  of  horrors. 
By  his  so  potent  art,  he  brings  it  about,  that  his  supernatural 
and  human  persons  never  jostle.  You  never  wonder  at  find- 
ing them  on  the  stage  together ;  they  meet  without  a  start, 
they  part  without  a  shiver ;  they  obey  one  power,  and  you 
feel, that  not  only  does  one  touch  of  nature  make  the  "whole 
world  kin,"  but  that  it  can  link  the  universe  in  one  brother- 
hood. It  is  the  humanity  which  bursts  out  of  every  corner 
and  crevice  of  this  drama,  like  grass  and  wild  flowers  from  a 
ruin,  that  reconciles  you  to  its  otherwise  intolerable  desolation. 
This  crowding  in,  and  heaping  up,  distinguish  the  style, 
sentiment,  imagery,  and  characters,  as  well  as  the  incidents 
of  "  Macbeth."  It  is  a  short  play,  but  the  style  is  uniformly 
massive — the  sentiment  and  imagery  are  rich  to  exuberance — 
the  characters  stand  out,  anild  or  terrible  wholes,  distinct  from 
each  other  as  statues,  even  when  dancing  their  wild  dance  to- 
gether, to  the  music  of  Shakspeare's  magical  genius.  Banquo, 
Duncan,  Macduff,  and  Malcolm,  have  all  this  distinct  colossal 
character.  .  But  the  most  interesting  persons  in  the  drama  are 
the  Witches,  Macbeth,  and  his  dark  Ladye!  What  unique 
creations  the  witches  are  !  Borderers  between  earth  and  hell, 
they  have  most  of  the  latter.  Their  faces  are  faded,  and  their 
raiment  withered  in  its  fires.  Their  age  seems  supernatural ; 
their  ugliness,  too,  is  not  of  the  earth.  A  wild  mirth  mingles 
with  their  malice ;  they  have  a  certain  strange  sympathy  with 
their  victims ;  they  fancy  them  and  toy  with  Macbeth  while 
destroying  him,  as  a  cat  with  a  mouse.  They  do  not  ride  on 
broomsticks,  nor  even  on  winds ;  their  motions  have  a  dream- 
like rapidity  and  ease.  They  are  connected,  too,  with  a  my- 
thology of  Shakspeare's  own  making,  perfectly  new  and  com 


450  MISCELLANEOUS    SKETCHES. 


pletc.  They  come  and  go,  and  you  are  left  in  total  uncer- 
tainty as  to  their  nature,  origin,  and  history,  and  must  merely 
say,  "  the  air  hath  bubbles  as  the  water  hath.  And  these  are 
of  them."  Altogether,  they  are  the  most  singular  daughters 
of  Shakspeare ;  and  you  wonder  what  Desdemona,  Cordelia, 
and  Imogen  would  have  thought  of  their  Wierd  Sisters. 

Next  comes  the  gloomy  tyrant  of  Scotland.  I  figure  him 
as  a  tall,  strong,  dark-haire<l,  dark-eyed,  black-browed  moun- 
taineer, possessing  originally  a  strong,  if  not  a  noble  nature. 
Ambition  is  dropped  like  hagseed  by  the  fiends  into  his  bosom, 
and  in  the  progress  of  its  growth  makes  him  first  a  murderer, 
and  ultimately  a  desperate  madman.  Not  natively  cruel,  he 
at  last,  from  the  necessities  of  his  career,  must  dine,  breakfast, 
and  supper  on  blood.  Yet  there  is  something  to  me  exceed- 
ingly pensive  as  well  as  sublime  in  all  the  actions  and  utter- 
ances of  Macbcth's  despair.  It  is  a  powerful  nature  at  bay, 
and  his  language  in  its  fierce  sweep — its  lurid  magnificence — 
its  lofty  yet  melancholy  tone — its  wild  moralising,  reminds  us 
of  that  which  Milton  puts  into  the  mouth  of  the  Prince  of 
Darkness.  Hear  t*he  celebrated  lines  : — 

"  Wherefore  was  that  cry  1 

Sey.  The  queen,  my  lord,  is  dead. 

Mac.  She  should  have  died  hereafter, 

There  would  have  been  time  for  such  a  word — 
To-morrow,  and  to-morrow,  and  to-morrow ; 
Creeps  in  this  petty  pace  from  day  to  day, 
To  the  last  syllable  of  recorded  time ; 
And  all  our  yesterdays  have  lighted  fools 
The  way  to  dusty  death.     Out,  out,  brief  candle, 
Life's  but  a  walking  shadow,  a  poor  player, 
That  struts  and  frets  his  hour  upon  the  stage, 
And  then  is  heard  no  more ;  it  is  a  tale 
Told  by  an  idiot,  full  of  sound  and  fury, 
Signifying  nothing." 

How  terribly  has  despair  concentrated  and  sharpened  the 
intellect  which  can,  in  the  crisis  of  its  fate,  thus  moralise.  I 
have  sometimes  compared  Macbeth  to  Saul  the  unhappy  King 
of  Israel.  Like  him  he  has  risen  from  a  lower  station ;  like 
him,  he  has  cemented  his  tottering  throne  by  blood  ;  like  him, 
he  is  possessed  by  an  evil  spirit ;  like  him,  at  last  he  becomes 
desperate.  Macbeth  hies  to  consult  the  Wierd  Sisters ;  Saul, 
the  Philistines  being  upon  him — David  at  a  distance — Samuel 


SHAKSPEARE.  45 1 


dead — God  refusing  to  answer  him  by  Urim,  or  prophets,  or 
dreams — goes  in  his  extremity  and  knocks  at  the  door  of  Hell. 
About  Lady  Macbeth  there  has  been  much  needless  critical 
discussion.     Some  have  painted  her  in  colors  supernaturally 
dark  and  deformed,  another  and  more  hideous  Hecate.     Oth- 
ers have,  in  defending,  gone  so  far  as  to  make  her  almost  ami- 
able ;  who,  I  suppose,  kissed  as  she  killed  the  sleeping  grooms. 
I  can  coincide  with  neither  of  those  notions — if,  indeed,  the 
latter  have  formed  itself  into  a  proper  and  solid  notion.     I 
look  upon  Lady  Macbeth  as  a  female  shape  of  her  husband — his 
shadow  in  the  other  sex — a  specimen  of  the  different  effects 
which  the  same  passion  produces  upon  different  sexes.    The  bet- 
ter the  sex,  the  worse  are  the  evil  consequences,  corruptio  op- 
tunics  pessuma.     Even  as  a  female  infidel,  or  a  female  de- 
bauchee, is  incomparably  worse  than  a  male  in  similar  predic- 
aments ;  so  with  a  female  murderer — one  drained  of  all  the 
feelings  of  humanity  by  the  prevalence  of  a  bad  ambition. 
Foster  speaks  of  Lady  Macbeth's  pure  demoniac  firmness — 
meaning  to  intimate  that  she  was  originally  worse  than  her 
husband,  but,  in  reality,  well   describing  the  more  total  and 
terrible  induration  which  vice  or  cruelty  produces  in  a  female 
bosom.     It  makes  man  a  butcher,  and  woman  a  fiend.     These 
very  terms,  indeed,  are  applied  through  Malcolm  to  the  pair  : — 

"  This  dead  butcher  and  his  fiend-like  queen." 

— words  which,  though  uttered  through  the  voice  of  an  enemy, 
seem  intended  to  convey  Shakspeare's  own  notion  of  their 
ultimate  characters :  only  Macbeth  must  be  admitted  to  have 
become  an  inspired  butcher  ere  the  close ! 

And  how  thoroughly  in  keeping  their  different  dooms ! 
Macbeth,  having  sinned  as  a  man,  dies  like  a  man,  in  broad 
battle,  with  harness  on  his  back,  yielding  rather  to  destiny 
than  to  the  foe.  His  lady,  having  offended  against  the  nobler 
code,  and  the  higher  nature  of  woman,  has  a  different  fate. 
After  long  internal  anguish,  expressed  not  to  the  full,  even  by 
her  awful  sleep,  she  perishes  by  her  own  hand.  Woman,  infe- 
rior it  may  be  to  man  in  intellect,  is  so  far  superior  in  moral 
qualities,  that  when  these  are  violated,  the  pillars  of  human- 
ity shake,  and  destruction,  in  one  or  other  of  its  forms,  must 


452  MISCELLANEOUS    SKETCHES. 


avenge  the  outrage  committed  against  the  very  highest  feelings 
of  human  nature. 

From  his  imaginative  plays  I  select  "  The  Tempest."  I 
said  before,  that  in  poetry  there  was  no  absolute  origination. 
If  anything  could  induce  me  to  recall  this  opinion,  it  were  the 
recollection  of  this  marvellous  play.  It  rises  before  us  as  the 
New  World  to  the  eye  of  Columbus,  fresh,  peopled  with 
strange  forms,  glittering  with  dew,  and  radiant  in  sunshine. 
As  in  "  Macbeth,"  all  is  strange,  but,  unlike  it,  all  is  glad 
aud  genial.  Its  magic  is  mild  and  harmless.  The  lightnings 
of  this  tempest  affright,  but  they  do  not  burn.  The  "  Isle"  is 
full  of  noises,  but  they  are  most  of  them  soothing  and  musical — 

"Sounds  and  sweet  airs,  that  give  delight  and  hurt  not. 
Sometimes  a  thousand  twangling  instruments 
Will  hum  about  mine  ears,  and  sometimes  voices, 
That  if  I  waked  after  long  sleep, 
Will  make  me  sleep  again." 

Here  all  the  stern  laws  both  of  nature  and  of  the  world  are 
repealed.  The  very  villains  of  the  play  are  treated  with  len- 
ity— exposed — countermined — but  not  punished.  And  what 
beauty  shines  in  this  lonely  place  from  the  face  of  Miranda, 
the  fairest,  simplest,  noblest  female,  ever  made  by  genius. 
And  what  aerial  life  is  given  to  the  scene,  by  the  presence  of 
Ariel,  that  gay  creature  of  the  elements,  light  as  the  down  of 
the  thistle,  yet  powerful  as  the  thunderbolt,  so  "  delicate1'1  in 
the  discharge  of  his  mighty  tasks,  possessed  at  once  of  omnip- 
otence and  of  tact,  and  whose  songs  have  in  them  a  snatch  of 
the  sphere  music.  Hear  him,  in  the  prospect  of  liberty, 
singing— 

"  Where  the  bee  sueks,  there  suck  I ; 
In  a  cowslip's  bell  I  lie  : 
There  I  couch  where  owls  do  cry, 
On  the  bat's  back  I  do  fly, 
After  summer,  merily : 
Merrily,  merrily,  shall  I  live  now, 
Under  the  blossom  that  hangs  from  the  bough." 

And  what  a  savage  seal-skin  ornament  to  the  whole  is  the 
redoubted  Caliban — the  misshapen  Mooncalf — rude,  revenge- 
ful, ignorant,  lustful,  and  who  yet  caught  in  this  enchanted 
circle,  and  surrounded  by  the  influences  of  this  magic  isle, 


SHAKSPEARE.  453 


when  sober  speaics,  and  when  drunk  belches  out  the  finest  im~ 
agination  and  poetry. 

Surely  Shakspeare,  when  he  wrote  the  "  Tempest,"  must 
have  been  in  the  gladdest  of  al]  his  moods.  I  fancy  him  writ- 
ing it  on  the  first  week  of  a  beautiful  spring,  when  nature 
leaps  at  once  out  of  the  icy  grasp  of  winter  into  summer's  full 
flush  and  glory,  and  when  every  heart  leaps  in  unison,  and 
finds  a  new  joy  and  life-like  heaven  suddenly  infused  into  it, 
and  life,  love,  beauty,  and  joy,  seem  for  a  season  to  compose 
all  the  categories  of  being. 

"  Hamlet"  is  Shakspeare's  grand  poetical  puzzle,  confess- 
edly the  most  intellectual  of  all  his  dramas,  and  expresses 
most  fully,  although  by  no  means  most  clearly,  the  results  of 
his  deep,  subtle,  and  long-continued  musings  upon  man,  and 
all  the  strange  phenomena  by  which,  in  this  little  life  of  his, 
he  is  surrounded. 

Coleridge  once  remarked,  that  Shakspeare  never  seems  to 
have  come  to  his  full  height,  else  he  had  not  been  a  man,  but 
a  monster.  Had  he  written,  we  may  add,  ten  plays  equal  to 
"  Hamlet,"  this  monstrous  growth  had  been  complete.  Its 
wisdom,  so  deep  and  varied — its  calm  mastery — its  profusion 
of  incidents  and  characters — the  skill  with  which  the  most  con- 
tradictory elements,  from  a  ghost  to  a  gravedigger,  are  harmon- 
ised— the  philosophic  self-possession,  united  to  the  burning 
passion  and  the  imaginative  interest — the  combination  of 
breadth  and  length,  of  height  and  depth — the  mere  size  of  the 
canvas  chosen — the  mystic  uncertainty  of  the  whole  co-exist- 
ing with  singular  clearness  and  finish  in  most  of  the  parts — 
the  rapidity  of  the  transitions — the  unflagging  spirit  of  the 
dialogue,  and  the  energy  of  the  soliloquies — all  go  to  consti- 
tute it  a  unique  amidst  a  world  of  uniques,  the  most  wonder- 
ful of  wonders,  the  most  Shakspearian  of  Shakspeare's  works. 
Shakspeare  in  "  Hamlet,"  seems  growing  into  that  somewhat 
greater  than  himself,  for  which  at  present  we  want  a  name, 
and  was  arrested,  we  might  almost  think,  while  becoming  the 
tertium  quid  between  man  and  a  superior  crder  of  intelli- 
gences. 

It  is  the  point  of  view  maintained  in  "  Hamlet"  which 
gives  it  its  peculiar  power  as  a  meditative  play.  Hamlet  is  a 
man  loosened  in  a  great  measure  from  earth,  although  not 


454  MISCELLANEOUS    SKETCHES. 


utterly  exasperated  against  it.  He  sees  it  not  at  the  point  of 
the  misanthrope,  nor  altogether  at  that  of  the  maniac,  but  at 
that  of  one  who  as  half-way  toward  both  these  characters.  His 
sadness  casts  a  moonlight  of  contemplation  around  all  things, 
•which,  as  it  shines,  now  twists  them  into  odd  and  mirthful  atti- 
tudes, invests  them  now  with  shadowy  horror,  and  now  with 
pleasing  gloom.  Man  and  woman  have  both  ceased  to  delight 
him,  but  have  not  ceased  to  be  objects  of  eager  interest,  curi- 
osity, and  speculation.  Driven  by  circumstances  and  tempera- 
ment toward  an  insulated  position,  he  pauses,  in  his  full 
retreat  from  mankind,  to  record  his  impressions  of  them. 
Madame  Roland,  on  her  way  to  the  scaffold,  wished  she  had 
been  able  to  record  the  strange  thoughts  which  were  rising  in 
her  mind.  So  Hamlet — a  wounded  deer  seeking  the  forest  of 
death,  separated  from  men  for  ever — has,  in  immortal  solilo- 
quies, in  pungent  lines,  in  wild  and  whirling  words,  or  in 
wilder  laughter,  uttered  the  strange  ideas  which  he  felt  flock- 
ing around  his  mind.  Profound  as  wisdom  itself  are  many  of 
these  thoughts,  and  expressed  in  sentences  of  the  most  com- 
pact significance. 

But  this  characteristic  extends  to  the  whole  play.  Hamlet 
has  infected  all  the  subordinate  characters  with  his  own  wis- 
dom. Old  Polonius  talks  at  times  like  another  Dr.  Johnson ; 
Ophelia  is  far  too  wise  for  one  so  young;  the  king  him- 
self hiccups  aphorisms  ;  and  the  ghost,  while  he  says,  '•  Brief 
must  I  be,  I  smell  the  hour  of  dawn,"  makes  up  for  the  bre- 
vity by  the  pith  of  his  speeches.  Indeed,  had  "  Hamlet"  ap- 
peared in  this  century,  we  should  have  said,  that  it  was  con- 
structed on  the  principle  of  bringing  in  all  the  fine  thoughts 
which  had  been  accumulating  for  years  on  the  pages  of  its 
author's  note-book.  But  such  a  practice  was,  in  Shakspcare's 
day, unknown;  and,  in  a  writer  of  his  rich  and  spontaneous 
power,  is  unlikely,  if  not  impossible. 

In  "  Hamlet,"  strong  distemperaturc  of  mind  ministers  the 
principal  part  of  the  interest.  It  is  so,  too,  with  his-  "Winter's 
Tale,"  his  "  Othello,"  his  "  Timon  of  Athens,"  his  "  King 
Lear,"  and  his  "  Macbeth."  These  are.  dreams  of  Shakspeare's 
darker  moods,  for  the  smile  of  the  "  gentle  Willy"  disguised 
often  wild  tumults  of  thought  and  feeling,  and  resembled 
that  red  morning  sunshine  which  introduces  long  days  of  tein- 


SHAKSPEARE.  455 


pest.  There  was  a  vein  in  Shakspeare's  heart  running  in  a 
deep  and  secret  channel  seldom  disclosed,  but  which  found  now 
and  then  a  fearful  vent  in  his  impersonations  of  the  jealous 
lover,  the  maniac,  the  misanthrope,  the  murderous  king,  or  the 
wild,  changeful,  witty,  exasperated,  and  more  than  half  mad- 
dened prince.  In  these  he  is  thoroughly  in  earnest ;  the  large 
iron  which  has  pierced  a  large  soul  is  boldly  displayed ;  and, 
under  a  thin  mask,  you  see  the  biggest  of  human  hearts  agita- 
ted to  agony,  and  the  most  sweet-blooded  of  men  doing  well  to 
be  angry  even  unto  death.  It  is  terribly  sublime  to  stand  by 
the  shore  of  an  angry  Shakspeare,  and  to  see  him,  like  the 
troubled  sea,  casting  out  a  furious,  yet  rainbow-tinted  spray, 
against  the  hollowness  and  the  abuses  of  human  society,  and 
making  sport,  for  a  season,  of  man  himself!  Thus  Timon 
seems  to  fling  his  platters  of  hot  water  past  his  flatterers  upon 
humanity  at  large ;  thus  Lear  shrieks  up  questions  to  the 
heavens,  which  make  the  gloomy  curtains  of  night  to  shiver ; 
thus  Macbeth,  when  not  hewing  at  his  enemies,  is  cutting,  with 
a  like  desperate  hand,  at  the  problems  of  human  life  and  des- 
tiny ;  and  thus  Hamlet,  while  dafhcing  on  his  wild  erratic  way 
to  his  uncle's  death,  tramples  on  many  an  ancient  saw,  and 
makes  many  a  popular  error  to  tremble  below  Ins  uncontrolla- 
ble feet. 

This  did  not,  as  some  might  imagine,  arise  from  the  neces- 
sity of  fully  impersonating  certain  eccentric  characters ;  for, 
first,  why  did  he  create  or  select  such  characters  at  all  ?  and, 
secondly,  could  he  have  presented  them  with  such  effect  with- 
out profound  sympathy  for  them  ?  Shakspeare  was  not  a 
mere  mimic  or  mocking-bird  :  he  spoke  out  of  the  abundance 
of  a  universal  heart,  he  reproduced  himself  in  many  of  his 
characters,  and  his  frequent  choice  and  con  amore  treatment  of 
dark  and  morbid  subjects,  seem  conclusively  to  show  that  there 
was  a  fever  somewhere  in  his  own  system,  although  it  has  often 
been  identified,  and  that,  on  the  whole,  justly,  with  all  that  is 
genial  and  gentle.  It  was,  indeed,  a  priori  impossible  that  a 
being  who  formed  the  microcosm  and  mirror  of  humanity 
should  not  reflect  its  shadows  as  well  as  its  lights ;  and  that, 
as  the  representative  of  man,  he  should  not  pass  through  man's 
hour  of  darkness. 

There  is  no  play  in  all  Shakspeare's  works,  if  we,  perhaps, 


456  MISCELLANEOUS     SKETCHES. 


except  "  Timon"  and  "  Lear,"  where  the  interest  and  power 
are  so  inextricably  interwoven  with  the  main  character  as  in 
"  Hamlet."  He  is  the  play.  Compared  to  him,  the  other 
characters  seem  shadows  as  unsubstantial  as  his  father's  ghost. 
That  ghost  himself  is  hardly  so  interesting  as  his  son.  Like 
shadows  swaying  to  the  motions  of  their  substances,  do  the 
various  characters  obey  Hamlet's  changeful  whims,  yield  to 
his  tempestuous  rage,  and  echo  his  wild  wisdom.  Never  was 
the  overbearing  influence  of  one  driven  on  the  wind  of  destiny, 
over  idle  and  commonplace  personages,  more  powerfully  dis- 
played. Truly,  the  slightest  whisper  of  real  despair  is  thun- 
der, its  merest  touch  is  iron,  its  breath  an  irresistible  tem- 
pest !  It  will  bespeak  a  visiter  from  the  other  world, 
"  although  all  hell  should  yawn;"  it  will  make  "a  ghost"  of 
any  one  who  dares  to  stand  in  its  fierce  way. 

Many  critics,  while  seeking  to  unravel  the  mystery  of  Ham- 
let's character,  have  omitted  to  notice  what  is  the  main  moral 
and  purpose  of  the  play — that  is,  unquestionably,  to  show  the 
ramified  wretchedness  springing  from  crime.  This  it  is  which 
is  the  root  of  all  the  mischief  and  calamity  in  the  play.  This 
disturbs  the  grave,  embroils  the  state,  infuriates  and  half  de- 
ranges the  great  soul  of  Hamlet,  and  is  avenged  by  the  suc- 
cessive deaths  of  Polonius,  Ophelia,  Hamlet,  the  king,  the 
queen,  and  Laertes.  This  object  of  the  poet  is  thoroughly 
gained.  Nemesis  is  left  sitting  upon  heaps  of  carcasses,  and 
purveying  with  an  iron  smile  the  manifold  and  mingling 
streams  of  blood,  which  are  all  traceable  to  the  one  murder  in 
the  garden.  And  the  moral  is — crime  never  speaks  without 
being  answered  by  echo  upon  echo  from  the  rocks  of  eternal 
justice ;  and,  in  the  ruin  which  follows,  the  innocent  are  often 
as  deeply  involved  as  the  guilty. 

Shakspeare,  no  doubt,  puts  into  the  mouths  of  his  charac- 
ters words  which  might  seem  to  accuse  Providence.  Ham- 
let, in  one  of  his  last  speeches,  calls  it  a  "  harsh  world." 
And  Horatio's  language,  when,  in  summing  up  the  whole  event- 
ful history,  he  speaks  of 

"  Cruel,  bloody,  and  unnatural  acts, 
Of  accidental  judgments,  casual  slaughters, 
Purposes  mistook," 


SHAKSPEARE.  457 


is  hardly  that  of  profound  faith.  But  both  are  speaking  from 
partial  and  one-sided  points  of  view;  whereas  the  spirit  of  the 
whole  play,  and  many  of  the  words,  go  to  teach  us  that  in 
everything  there  is  a  purpose,  that  Providence  "  commends  the 
poisoned  chalice"  to  the  lips  of  those  who  have  mingled  it, 
and  that  the  inequalities  and  gaps  which  do  exist  in  the  ad- 
ministration of  human  affairs  are  but  the  open  mouths  of  a 
general  cry  for  a  scene  of  more  perfect  retribution  in  another 
world 

But  two  deductions  from  the  catastrophe  of  Hamlet  seem 
possible  :  the  one,  that  this  world  is  a  mere  atheistic  hubbub, 
the  scene  of  innumerable  wrongs — wrongs,  too,  mixing  and 
intertwining  for  evermore,  and  which  are  never  to  be  redressed ; 
or  that  there  must  be  a  future  state.  We  advise  any  one  who 
is  doubtful  as  to  which  of  these  conclusions  Shakspeare  wished 
us  to  draw,  first  to  ponder  the  impression  left  on  his  own 
mind  as  he  rises  from  the  perusal  of  the  play,  for  that,  let  him 
depend  on  it,  is  the  impression  the  poet  meant  to  leave ;  and 
then  to  read  carefully  Hamlet's  several  soliloquies,  and  the 
soliloquy  of  the  miserable  king.  In  these,  and  throughout 
the  play,  the  power  of  conscience,  the  supremacy  of  the 
"  canons  of  the  Eternal,"  the  existence  of  a  future  world,  and 
the  influence  of  prayer  with  Grod,  are  recognised  in  language 
so  decided,  and  in  a  manner  so  sincere,  that  we  are  led,  and 
many  may  be  driven,  to  the  conviction,  that  this  most  profound 
of  dramas — this  broadest  of  all  panoramic  views  of  human 
nature,  and  life,  and  destiny — a  view  caught  on  the  shudder- 
ing brink  and  from  the  fearful  angle  of  all  but  madness — is 
not  a  libel  upon  the  Divine  Author  like  the  "  Cenci,"  nor  a 
paean  sheathed  in  blasphemy  like  the  "  Faust  "  but  that,  in 
spirit,  tone,  and  language,  it  doth 

"  Assert  Eternal  Providence, 
And  vindicate  the  ways  of  God  to  man." 

And  if  "  Hamlet"  explains  not,  and  if  it  even  deepens  in  some 
measure  the  mystery  of  human  guilt,  it  at  the  same  time  pro- 
claims, trumpet-tongued,  the  clear  certainty  of  present  punish- 
ment, and  the  strong  probability  of  future  retribution. 

What  Shakspeare's  theological  creed  was,  wo  do  not  profess 
to  know.  An  author  recently  maintains  that  he  was  an  ideal 


458  MISCELLANEOUS    SKETCHES. 


pantheist,  and  quotes  in  proof  of  it  his  words  iii  "  Macbeth" — - 
"  we  are  such  stuff  as  dreams  are  made  of,"  and  the  famous 
finale  of  Prospero.  But  Prospero's  speech  is  merely  a  para- 
phrase of  the  Scripture  statement — "  all  these  things  shall  be 
dissolved."  And  Macbeth's  words  are  more  in  keeping  with 
the  moment  in  his  history,  when,  in  the  prospect  of  death,  and 
in  the  madness  of  desperate  guilt,  all  things  were  becoming 
unreal  and  swimming  around  his  vision,  than  they  are  expres- 
sive of  his  Creator's  calm  and  settled  opinion.  The  murderer 
is  hunted  back  into  the  refuge  of  atheism,  and  sleepless  him- 
self, would  seek  to  identify  sleep  and  death.  "  Our  little  life 
is  rounded  with  a  sleep."  As  if  he  said,  with  a  ghastly 
smile — "  sleep  has  forsaken  me,  and  thus  rendered  my  life  a 
hideous  fragment,  a  yawning  chasm  ;  but  death  cannot  so  fly  : 
it  must  close  and  complete  my  career."  But  he  who  speaks 
of  "  sleep"  with  Macbeth,  speaks  also  of  "  dreams"  with 
Hamlet.  Whatever  Shakspeare's  notion  of  religious  matters, 
however,  might  be,  it  is  interesting  to  know  that  his  theory  of 
morals,  as  it  may  be  gathered  from  his  greater  and  more 
serious  plays,  is  essentially  sound.  This  may  not  appear  to 
some  a  matter  of  much  consequence ;  but,  as  it  is  pleasing 
now  and  then  to  turn  from  commonplace  clocks,  and  to  learn 
the  hour  from  a  sun-dial,  so  we  like  sometimes  to  look  away 
from  systems  of  moral  philosophy,  to  the  living  and  sunlit 
tables  of  this  great  master  of  human  nature.  To  others, 
again,  his  deliverances  on  such  subjects  may  possibly  seem 
oracular,  as  from  a  new  Dodona  seated  among  the  oaks  of  the 
Avon. 

The  intellectual  and  poetical  qualities  of  Shakspeare  find 
in  "  Hamlet"  ample  scope  for  display.  It  is  the  longest  of 
his  dramas,  and  at  the  same  time,  the  richest.  The  sun  of 
semi-madness,  vertical  above,  has  produced  a  wild  and  tropical 
luxuriance  of  imagery.  Every  sentence  is  starred.  No  play 
of  his  contains  at  once  so  much  sense  and  so  much  nonsense, 
so  much  bombastic  verse  and  so  much  dense  and  pointed 
prose,  so  much  extravagant  license  of  fancy  and  so  much  pro- 
found insight.  And  so  broad  is  the  canvas,  that  there  is  ample 
room  in  it  for  all  those  extremes :  they  never  interfere  or  jos- 
tle; the  profoundest  practical  philosophy  and  the  wildest 
raving  here  meet  together :  "  vice  and  a  ridiant  angel"  em- 


SHAKSPEARE.  459 


brace  each  other;  and  Billinsgate  like  that  of  a  drab,  and 
eloquence  and  apprehension  like  that  of  a  god,  are  united,  if 
not  reconciled.  It  is  this  exceeding  comprehension  of  view 
which  has  rendered  "  Hamlet"  the  true  "  Psalm  of  Life,"  ex- 
hibiting it,  not  partially,  or  by  selection,  or  in  colors,  but  calo- 
typing  it  calmly  and  sternly  as  a  mystic,  fantastical,  but  real 
whole. 

Across  this  broad  picture,  Shakspeare  has  caused  to  shoot  one 
ray  from  the  unseen  world.  We  refer,  of  course,  to  the  ghost. 
There  is  nothing  which  shows  more  the  delicate  and  masterly 
handling  of  a  Creator  (who  loves,  understands,  and  treats  ten- 
derly his  own  children,  not,  like  a  plagiarist  and  stepfather, 
ignorantly  and  despitefully  uses  them)  than  the  management 
of  this  awful  visiter.  The  words  "  horribly  beautiful"  are 
applicable  to  him,  and  to  him  alone.  There  is  not  one  vulgar 
element  about  him.  He  is — shall  we  say  ? — a  perfect  gentle- 
man, and  has  a  "  courteous  action."  One  desire,  that  of 
revenge,  burns  in  his  bosom,  but  it  burns  rather  against  the 
crime  than  the  criminal.  He  leaves  his  wife  "  to  Heaven,  and 
to  the  thorns"  in  her  own  breast.  In  his  last  appearance, 
while  the  queen  is  affrighted  at  Hamlet's  ecstacy,  he  tells  him, 
in  compassion,  to  "  step  between  her  and  her  fighting  soul." 
And  how  admirably  has  Shakspeare  caught  the  true  shape, 
form,  and  figure  of  a  spiritual  being,  such  as  we  at  present  con- 
ceive of  it!  He  is  not  a  vague  vapour:  he  is  "clad  in  com- 
plete steel;"  his  beard  is  visible,  "a  sable  silvered;"  his 
"  beaver  is  up;"  his  countenance  is  "very  pale,"  but  "more 
in  sorrow  than  in  anger;"  he  has  come  from  literal  "fire," 
and  his  thoughts,  feelings,  and  language,  resemble  those  of  one 
still  in  the  flesh.  And  yet,  around  the  steel,  and  the  beaver, 
and  the  beard,  there  hangs  a  haze  of  spiritual  mystery  and 
terror,  which  lends  and  receives  effect  from  the  materialism  of 
the  apparition.  He  "  vanishes  at  the  crowing  of  the  cock." 
He  passes,  like  heat,  through  the  solid  ground.  Shakspeare 
has  thus  avoided  the  extremes  of  representing  a  ghost  in  too 
shadowy  or  too  gross  a  light — of  spinning  this  grisly  thread 
too  thickly  or  too  thin — to  homespun  or  to  gossamer.  His 
shadow  is  something  of  a  substance,  and  his  substance  is  some- 
thing of  a  shade. 

And  such  a  nondescript  form,  too,  appears  at  first  Hamlet 


460  MISCELLANEOUS    SKETCH£S. 


himself — a  ghost  among  men,  the  phantom  son  of  a  phantom 
sire,  neither  a  hero  nor  a  coward,  neither  right  flesh  and  blood 
nor  a  mere  abstraction,  armed,  like  Satan,  "  with  what  seemed 
both  sword  and  shield,"  and  yet,  like  him,  shrinking  away,  at 
times,  from  the  contest.  He  stands  between  the  living  and  the 
dead,  and  seems  to  disdain  all  critical  classification.  He  may 
be  compared  to  one  of  those  shifting  shapes,  met  with  in 
water,  mist,  or  cloud,  which  appears,  at  one  angle  and  from  one 
distance,  a  palace;  at  another,  a  temple;  at  a  third,  a  mis- 
shapen monster ;  and  at  a  fourth,  a  man.  Thus,  Hamlet,  at 
one  time,  and  to  one  observer,  seems  the  bravest  and  strongest 
of  men;  anon,  the  weakest  and  most  cowardly  :  at  one  time, 
devout  and  rational ;  at  another,  a  fierce  and  profane  babbler  : 
now,  an  ardent  lover ;  and  now,  a  heartless  insulter  of  the 
woman  be  had  professed  to  love :  now,  prompt  in  action  to 
rashness;  and  now,  slow  to  indolence  and  fatuity:  now,  a 
counterfeit  of  madness ;  and  now,  really  insane  :  now,  the  most 
cunning,  and  now  the  most  careless,  of  men :  now  a  rogue, 
now  a  fool,  now  a  wise  man,  and  now  a  heterogeneous  com- 
pound of  all  three.  Twenty  theories  have  been  propounded 
of  him ;  all  have  been  plausibly  based  on  particular  points  in 
his  character;  and  yet  no  theory  hitherto  is  entirely,  or  even 
approximately,  complete;  each  is  serviceable  chiefly  in  blow- 
ing out  the  one  immediately  before  itself:  and  still  Hamlet 
seems,  as  he  stands,  shrouded  and  shifting  to  every  breath,  to 
say  to  his  critics,  as  he  said  to  Hosincrantz  and  Guildenstern 
"You  would  play  upon  me;  you  would  seem  to  know  my 
stops;  you  would  pluck  out  the  heart  of  my  mystery;  you 
would  sound  me  from  the  lowest  note  to  the  top  of  my  com- 
pass ;  and  there  is  much  music,  excellent  voice,  in  this  little 
organ,  yet  cannot  you  make  it  speak." 

We  happen  at  present  to  have  beside  us  only  two  of  those 
twenty  "  soundings,"  and  beg  leave  to  say  something  of  them, 
ere  propounding  our  own  view.  The  first  is  that  of  Dr.  John- 
son. It  comes,  as  Hamlet  would  say,  "  trippingly  off  the 
tongue,"  and  is  written  with  more  than  his  usual  careless  rotun- 
dity and  lazy  elaboration  of  style.  It  commences  by  prais- 
ing, very  properly,  the  "  variety"  of  the  play.  But  what  does 
the  doctor  mean  by  the  "  merriment"  it  excites  ?  Surely  it  is 
"  very  tragical  mirth."  Even  in  the  laughter  of  this  drama, 


SHAKSPEARE,  46 1 


its  heart  is  sad.  Hamlet  and  a  gravedigger  are  the  two  jest- 
ers !  And  while  the  wit  of  the  one  is  wild,  reckless,  turbu- 
lent, like  the  glee  of  the  damned,  that  of  the  other  has  a  death- 
rattle  in  its  throat,  and,  returned  to  us  on  the  echoes  of  the 
grave,  produces  an  unspeakably  dreary  effect.  Dr.  Johnson 
adds,  "  The  pretended  madness  of  Hamlet  causes  much  mirth." 
This  we  question.  At  least  us  it  has  always  impressed  with  a 
feeling  of  melancholy.  Indeed,  the  lighter  parts  of  the  play, 
consisting  more  of  wit  than  of  humor,  excite  rather  wonder 
at  the  sharp  turns,  lively  sallies,  and  fierce  retorts  of  a  stung 
spirit,  than  any  broad  and  genial  laughter.  He  says,  that 
"  some  scenes  neither  forward  nor  retard  the  action."  This 
we  may  grant ;  but  are  not  these  in  fine  keeping  with  the 
"  slow,  reluctant"  delay  of  the  hero  ?  Shakspeare  must  lin- 
ger, in  sympathy  with  Hamlet !  Nay,  this  was  sometimes,  as 
we  have  seen,  the  manner  of  the  poet.  An  inspired  loiterer, 
he  now  and  then  leans  over  some  beautiful  stream,  or  pauses 
at  some  fine  point  of  prospect,  or  strikes  into  some  brief  by- 
way of  humor,  or  character,  o-r  pathos,  even  when  his  day's 
journey,  and  the  day  itself,  are  both  drawing  to  a  close.  For 
why  ?  He  was  a  man,  not  a  railway  machine ;  and,  besides, 
as  his  soul  had  its  habitual  dwelling  in  summer,  his  days  were 
all  long. 

He  says,  that  "  Hamlet  was  an  instrument  rather  than  an 
agent,"  but  suggests  no  reason  why  Shakspeare  has  made  him 
so.  He  charges,  finally,  the  play  with  a  lack  of  poetical  jus- 
tice and  poetical  probability.  The  apparition  left  the  regions 
of  the  dead  to  little  purpose.  The  revenge  which  he  demands 
is  not  obtained  but  by  the  death  of  him  who  is  required  to 
take  it ;  and  the  gratification  which  would  arise  from  the  de- 
struction of  a  usurper  and  a  murderer  is  abated  by  the  death 
of  Ophelia,  the  young  and  beautiful,  the  harmless  and  the 
pious."  But,  first,  the  apparition's  object  was  gained — the 
ghost  did  not  leave  the  grave  in  vain — the  murderer  was  de- 
tected and  died ;  and,  secondly,  Shakspeare  probably  consult- 
ed something  higher  than  our  "  gratification."  He  sought, 
probably,  the  broad  moral  purpose  we  have  already  expressed ; 
and,  if  questioned  as  to  poetical  justice,  might  have  replied  in 
words  similar  to  those  of  Scott — perhaps  the  noblest  passage 
in  a  moral  point  of  view,  in  all  that  writer's  works — "  A  cha- 


462  MISCELLANEOUS    SKETCHES. 


racter  of  a  lofty  stamp  is  degraded,  rather  than  exalted,  by  an 
attempt  to  reward  virtue  with  temporal  prosperity.  Such  is 
not  the  recompense  which  Providence  has  deemed  worthy  of 
suffering  merit,  and  it  is  a  dangerous  and  fatal  doctrine,  that 
rectitude  of  conduct  and  of  principle  are  either  naturally  allied 
with,  or  adequately  rewarded  by,  the  gratification  of  our  pas- 
sions, or  attainment  of  our  wishes.  In  a  word,  if  a  virtuous 
and  self-denied  character  is  dismissed  with  temporal  wealth, 
greatness,  or  rank,  the  reader  will  be  apt  to  say,  '  Verily,  vir- 
tue has  had  its  reward.'  But  a  glance  at  the  great  picture  of 
life  will  show  that  duty  is  seldom  thus  remunerated."  And 
what  is  true  of  the  apportionment  of  the  gifts  of  Providence 
is  true  also  of  its  evils.  It  were  degrading  to  a  lofty  charac- 
ter, net  only  to  enrich  it  with  uniform  good  fortune,  but  to 
give  it  an  unnatural  insulation  from  the  great  and  wide  ruin 
which  is  produced  by  guilt. 

We  pass  to  Goethe's  far  more  celebrated  account  of  "  Ham 
let,"  of  which  the  "  Edinburgh  Review1'  declares,  that  there 
is  "  nothing  so  good  in  all  our  own  commentators — nothing  at 
once  so  poetical,  so  feeling,  and  so  just."  After  a  beautiful 
picture  of  Hamlet's  original  character,  and  a  paraphrase  of 
his  story,  Groethe  says,  "  to  me  it  is  clear  that  Shakspeare 
meant  to  represent  the  effects  of  a  great  action  laid  upon  a 
soul  unfit  for  the  performance  of  it."  And  then  follows  the 
well-known  and  exquisitely-beautiful  figure — "  An  oak-tree  is 
planted  in  a  costly  jar,  which  should  have  borne  only  pleasant 
flowers  in  its  bosom  :  the  roots  expand,  the  jar  is  shivered. 
A  lovely,  pure,  noble,  and  most  moral  nature,  without  the 
strength  of  nerve  which  forms  a  hero,  sinks  beneath  a  burdcu 
which  it  cannot  bear,  and  must  not  cast  away."  This  is  very 
fine,  but  is  it  true?  .Does  it  open  the  lock  of  Hamlet's 
character  ?  Does  it  account  foi  all,  or  for  the  most,  of  the 
mysteries  connected  with  it  ? 

Now,  we  do  not  find  any  proofs  that  Hamlet  was  peculiarly 
weak  of  nerve ;  nay,  we  find  many  proofs  to  the  contrary. 
Did  he  not  front  his  father's  spirit  in  arms  ?  Did  he  not 
rebuke  his  mother,  and  pink  old  Polonius,  mistaking  him  for 
his  uncle  ?  Did  he  not  bravely  confront  Laertes,  and  at  last 
stab  the  king  ?  These  actions  and  others  seem  to  prove  him 
endowed  with  the  "  Nemean  lion's  nerve;"  and,  although  he 


SHAKSPEARE.  463 


inore  than  once  charges  himself  with  cowardice,  yet  this  occurs 
always  in  passages  where  he  seems  to  be  beating  about  in 
search  of  causes  for  his  conduct,  and  to  be  lashing  himself,  by 
imaginary  arguments,  into  rage.  Nor  does  Shakspeare  wish 
to  represent  him  as  peculiarly  delicate  and  tender.  He  seems 
rather  an  oak  than  a  flower-jar,  though  it  be  an  oak  shaken  by 
the  wind.  No  namby-pamby  sentimentalist  had  he  ever  been, 
but  a  brave,  strong  man,  whose  melancholy  and  exasperation 
bring  forth,  in  tumultuous  profusion,  the  excessive  riches  of 
a  prematurely  thoughtful  and  very  powerful  soul.  His  is 
manifestly  no  weakly,  elegant  and  graceful  nature  unhinged  ; 
.but  a  strong,  rarely-gifted,  and  bold  spirit,  in  anguish,  uncer- 
tainty, aberration,  and  despair.  Though  there  were  no  other 
evidence,  the  vigor  and  tact  discovered  in  the  trick  passed 
upon  Rosincrantz  and  Guildenstern,  in  sending  them  to  be 
executed  instead  of  himself,  prove  that  he  was  an  energetic 
and  not  a  feeble  character.  So  that,  although  G-oethe  has  ex- 
tracted "  music"  from  this  strange  instrument,  he  has  not 
"  plucked  out"  the  heart  of  its  mystery. 

Let  us  now  come  to  state  our  own  impressions,  which  we  do 
not  propound  as  dogmatically  certain,  but  simply  as  highly 
probable. 

First,  then,  we  do  not  think  that  Shakspeare  ever  intended 
Hamlet  for  a  thoroughly  consistent  and  regular  character, 
swayed  always  by  intelligible  motives,  and  adjusted,  in  his 
actions,  either  according  to  fixed  principles  or  to  steady  cur- 
rents of  passion.  He  meant  to  show  us  a  mind  of  great  gene- 
ral powers  and  warm  passions,  liable  to  every  species  of  whim 
and  caprice,  and  at  last,  through  the  force  of  melancholy  and 
mingling  circumstances,  partially  unhinged — aware,  however, 
of  this,  and  with  astuteness  enough  to  turn  the  real  aberration 
into  a  means  for  supplying  evidence  for  the  existence  of  the 
assumed.  Such  a  nondescript  being,  hovering  between  the 
worlds  of  reality  and  insane  dream,  Shakspeare  chose,  that  he 
might  survey  mankind  from  a  new  and  strange  angle,  and 
through  a  medium  which  should  bring  out  more  forcibly  the 
mysterious  contrasts  of  human  life.  Hamlet  is  a  being  all 
but  loosened  from  humanity,  whom  we  see  bursting  tie  after 
tie  which  had  bound  him  to  his  kind,  and  surveying  them  at 
last  almost  from  an  ideal  altitude.  He  is  a  "  chartered  liber- 


464  MISCELLANEOUS    SKETCHES. 


tine,"  with  method  in  his  madness,  and  with  madness  in  his 
method,  and  who,  whether  he  rushes  or  pauses  on  his  uncertain 
path — now  with  the  rush  of  the  cataract  above,  and  now  with 
the  pause  of  the  deep  pool  below — is  sure  to  dash  a  strong 
and  lawless  light  upon  the  subjects  or  the  persons  he  encoun- 
ters. He  becomes  thus  a  quaint  and  mighty  mask,  from 
behind  which  Shakspeare  speaks  out  sentiments  which  he  could 
not  else  have  so  freely  disclosed ;  and — shall  we  say  ? — the 
great  dramatist  has  used  Hamlet  as  Turpin  did  Black  Bess — 
he  has  drenched  him  with  the  wine  of  demi-derangernent,  and 
then  accomplished  his  perilous  ride. 

Secondly,  Hamlet's  conduct  is  entirely  what  might  have 
been  expected  from  the  construction  of  his  mind,  and  the  effect 
sad  circumstances  have  produced  upon  him.  He  is  "  every- 
thing by  turns,  and  nothing  long."  No  deep  passion  of  any 
kind  can  root  itself  in  his  mind,  although  a  hundred  passions 
pass  and  repass,  and  rage  and  subside  within  his  soul.  He 
well  speaks  of  himself  as  consisting  of  divers  "parts."  His 
very  convictions  are  not  profound.  He  at  first  implicitly  be- 
lieves the  word  of  the  ghost  as  to  his  uncle's  guilt,  but  after- 
wards his  belief  falters,  and  he  has  to  be  re-assured  by  the  mat- 
ter of  the  play.  The  mask  of  total  madness  he  snatches  up, 
wears  con-amore  for  awhile,  and  then  wearies  of  it,  and  drops 
it,  and  then  resumes  it  again.  This,  too,  explains  his  conduct 
to  Ophelia.  He  loves  her ;  but  his  love,  or  its  expression, 
yields  for  a  time  to  the  paroxysm  of  the  passions  excited  by 
the  ghost;  it  returns,  like  a  demon  who  had  been  dismissed,  in 
sevenfold  force,  and  he  rushes  into  her  apartment,  and  goes 
through  antics,  partly  to  sustain  his  assumed  character  of 
madness,  but  principally  as  the  wild  outcome  of  real  love ;  his 
passion  is  again  overlaid  by  the  whirling  current  of  events,  but 
breaks  out  at  last,  like  a  furnace,  at  her  grave.  So,  too,  with 
his  desire  for  vengeance  on  his  father's  murderer.  It  has 
lighted,  not  as  Goethe  has  it,  on  a  feeble,  but  on  a  flighty 
nature ;  the  oak  is  not  in  a  tiny  jar,  it  is  planted  in  a  broad 
field,  but  a  field  wher3  there  is  not  much  "  depth  of  earth," 
and  where  many  other  trees  growing  beside  draw  a  portion 
of  the  depth  away.  It  is  not  the  want  of  nerve :  he  could  kill 
the  king,  in  a  momentary  impulse,  as  he  killed  Polonius,  but 
he  cannot  form  or  pursue  any  strong  and  steady  plan  for  his 


SHAKSPEARE.  465 


destruction ;  if  that  plan,  at  least,  required  time  for  its  de 
velopment.  Other  feelings,  too,  interfere  with  its  accomplish 
ment.  There  is  at  times  in  his  mind  a  reluctance  to  the  task 
as  a  work  of  butchery — the  butchery  of  an  uncle  and  a  step- 
father. Regard  for  his  mother's  feelings,  and  the  consequences 
to  result  on  her,  is  no  stranger  to  his  soul,  and  serves  to  cool 
his  ardor  and  to  excuse  his  delay.  The  desire  of  vengeance 
never,  in  short,  becomes  the  main  and  master  passions  of  his 
mind,  and  this,  simply,  because  that  powerful,  but  morbid  and 
jangled  mind  is  incapable  of  a  master  passion,  and  of  the  ex- 
ecution of  a  fixed  purpose.  One  consistency  only  is  there  in 
Hamlet's  character,  that  of  subtle  and  poetic  intellect.  This 
penetrates  with  its  searching  light  every  nook  and  corner  of 
the  play,  follows  him  through  all  the  windings  of  his  course, 
unites  in  some  measure  the  contradictory  passions  which  roll 
and  fluctuate  around  him,  inspirits  his  language  into  eloquence, 
wit,  and  wisdom,  and  makes  him  the  facile  princeps  of  Shak- 
speare's  fools — those  illustrious  personages  who  "  never  say  a 
foolish  thing,  and  never  do  a  wise  one."  Such  a  "  foremost 
fool  of  all  this  world,"  with  brilliant  powers,  uncertain  will, 
and  "  scattery"  purposes  and  passions,  is  Hamlet  the  Dane,  as, 
at  least,  he  appears  to  us  after  much  and  careful  pondering  of 
his  character.  Thow  into  the  crucible  strong  intellect,  vivid 
fancy,  irregular  will,  fluctuating  courage,  iupulsive  and  incon- 
sistent feelings,  an  excitable  heart,  a  melancholy  temperament, 
and  add  to  these  the  damaging,  weakening,  yet  infuriating  in- 
fluences of  a  father's  murder,  a  mother's  marriage,  the  visit  of 
a  ghost,  an  unsettled  passion  for  Ophelia,  the  meddling  inter- 
ference of  a  weak  father-in-law,  the  spectacle  of  a  disturbed 
and  degraded  country,  the  feeling  of  his  own  incapacity  for 
fixed  resolve  or  permanent  energy  of  passion,  and  from  this 
wierd  mixture  there  will  come  out  a  Hamlet,  in  all  his  strength 
and  weakness,  wisdom  and  folly,  energetic  commencements  and 
lame  and  impotent  conclusions,  insane  and  aimless  fury,  and 
strong,  sudden  gleams  of  resolution  and  valor,  vain  and  sound- 
ing bombast,  and  clear,  terse,  and  inspired  eloquence.  What 
weakness  he  has  does  not  lie  so  much  in  any  one  part  of  his 
mind,  as  in  the  want  of  proper  management  and  grasp  of  his 
powers  as  a  whole.  Partially  insane  he  is,  but  his  insanity  is 
the  reverse  of  a  monomania ;  it  arises  from  the  confusion  and 


466  MISCELLANEOUS    SKETCHES. 


too  rapid  succession  of  moods  and  feelings,  which  ho  cannot 
consolidate  into  a  whole,  or  press  into  one  strong,  narrow  cur 
rent,  running  on  to  his  purpose. 

"  As  tho  Pontick  sea 
To  the  Propontick  and  the  Hellespont." 

Is  it  too  much  to  call  him  a  sublime  and  sententious,  an 
earnest  and  eloquent  fool  ? 

Yet  it  is  clear  that  Shakspeare  had  a  peculiar  and  profound 
sympathy  with  Hamlet.  He  lingers  beside  him  long.  He 
lavishes  all  his  wealth  upon  him.  He  seems  to  love  to  look 
out  at  mankind  through  the  strange  window  of  those  wild  eyes. 
Was  this  because  Hamlet  was  (as  is  generally  supposed)  the 
child  of  his  mature  age,  or  was  it  from  a  certain  fellow-feeling? 
Hamlet  is  what  Shakspeare  would  have  been,  had  he  ever  been 
thoroughly  soured,  and  had  that  magnificent  head  of  his  ever 
begun  to  reel  and  totter.  Had  Shakspeare,  like  Swift,  John- 
son, Byron,  and  Scott,  a  fear  of  "  dying  a  top,"  and  has  he 
shot  out  that  awful  fear  into  his  impersonation  of  the  Prince 
of  Denmark,  and  thus  relieved  and  carried  it  off? 

The  general  moral  of  the  play  has  been  stated  above ;  but 
there  are  besides  numberless  minor  morals,  as  well  as  separate 
beauties,  scattered  in  golden  sentences  throughout,  which  must 
be  familiar  to  all.  There  is  the  picture  of  man,  in  his  strange 
contrarieties  of  wormhood  and  godhood — his  head  of  gold, 
and  his  feet  of  miry  clay — compacted  out  of  all  contradic- 
tions ;  and  who — even  as  the  Andes  include  in  their  sweep, 
from  the  ocean  below  to  the  hoary  head  of  Chimborazo  above, 
all  climates,  seasons,  and  productions  of  earth — touches,  as 
he  ascends,  all  conditions  of  being,  and  runs  parallel  to  all  the 
gradations  of  the  universe.  Pascal,  Herbert,  Young  and 
Pope,  have  written  in  emulous  and  eloquent  antithesis  on  the 
same  theme  ;  but  they  all  pale  before  this  one  expression  of 
Hamlet's  (after  a  matchless  enumeration  of  man's  noble  quali- 
ties)— "  this  quintessence  of  dust}'1  Where  in  literature  such 
an  anti-climax  ?  such  a  jerking  down  of  proud  pretensions  ; 
such  two  worlds  of  description  and  satire  condensed  into  two 
words  ?  This,  and  many  other  expressions  here,  and  in  other 
of  Shakspeare's  works,  prove  what  an  accusing  spirit,  what  a 
myriad-armed  and  tongued  misanthrope,  he  might  have  been  .' 


4G7 


But  a  soured  Shakspeare  is  a  thought  difficult  to  be  enter- 
tained. 

The  two  famous  soliloquies,  again,  seem  "  God's  canon 
against  self-slaughter"  versified.  They  have,  we  doubt  not, 
deterred  many  a  rash  spirit  from  suicide.  If  they  do  not  op- 
pose it  upon  the  highest  ground,  they  do  it  on  one  generally 
intelligible  and  powerful.  The  prayer  of  the  guilty  king  is 
worth  a  thousand  dull  homilies  on  the  subject.  It  points  to 
the  everlasting  distinction  between  a  sinful,  and  a  sinner's 
prayer.  The  advice  of  Polonius  to  his  son  is  full  of  practical 
wisdom ;  but  owing  to  the  contrast  with  the  frozen  stupidity 
of  the  man  from  whom  it  comes,  reminds  us  of  a  half-melted 
and  streaming  mass  of  ice.  The  irony  and  quaint  moral  which 
gild  the  skull  in  the  graveyard,  till  it  glares  and  chatters,  are 
in  keeping  with  the  wild  story  and  wilder  characters,  but  are 
not  devoid  of  edifying  instruction  to  those  who  can  surpass 
the  first  shudder  of  disgust.  And  the  character  and  fate  of 
Ophelia  convey,  in  the  most  plaintive  manner,  a  still  tenderer 
and  more  delicate  lesson. 

Surely  Shakspeare  was  the  greatest  and  most  humane  of  all 
mere  moralists.  Seeing  more  clearly  than  mere  man  ever  saw 
into  the  evils  of  human  nature  and  the  corruptions  of  society, 
into  the  natural  weakness  and  the  acquired  vice  of  man,  he 
can  yet  love,  pity,  forget  his  anger,  and  clothe  him  in  the  mel- 
low light  of  his  genius,  like  the  sun,  who,  in  certain  days  of 
peculiar  balm  and  beauty,  seems  to  shed  his  beams,  like  an 
amnesty,  upon  all  beings.  But  we  must  not  forget  that  Shak- 
speare is  no  pattern  for  us — that  this  very  generosity  of  heart 
seems,  we  fear,  to  have  blinded  him  to  the  special  character 
and  adaptations  of  the  Christian  scheme — and  that  we,  as 
Christians,  and  not  mere  philanthropists,  are  bound,  while 
pitying  the  guilty,  to  do  indignant  and  incessant  battle  against 
the  giant  Something,  for  which  sin  is  but  a  feeble  name,  which 
slew  our  Saviour,  and  which  has  all  but  ruined  our  race. 

I  have  dwelt  so  long  on  "Hamlet,"  that  I  must  now  hurry 
to  a  close. 

With  regard  to  Shakspeare's  critics  and  commentators  I 
will  not  say,  with  Hazlitt,  that  "  if  you  would  see  the  great- 
ness of  human  genius,  read  Shakspeare ;  if  you  would  see  the 
smallness  of  human  learning,  read  his  commentators."  But 


468  MISCELLANEOUS    SKETCHES. 


I  will  say,  that  I  have  learned  more  of  Shakspeare  from  Haz- 
litt,  than  from  any  other  quarter,  except  from  Shakspeare 
himself. 

In  preparing  these  cursory  remarks  upon  Shakspeare,  I  have 
studiously  avoided  re-reading  any  works  upon  the  subject.  I 
may,  however,  recommend  to  those  who  wish  to  sail  out  farther 
upon  this  great  ocean — Johnson's  "  Preface  to  Shakspeare" 
(excellent  so  far  as  it  goes),  Hazlitt's  "  Characters  of  Shak- 
speare's  Plays,"  Schlegel's  "  Lectures  on  Dramtic  Litera- 
ture," Mrs.  Jameson  on  Shakspeare's  Female  Characters,  and 
an  admirable  series  which  appeared  in  "  Blackwood,"  entitled 
"  Shakspeare  in  Germany." 

I  close  by  claiming  a  high  place  for  this  poet  among  the 
benefactors  of  this  kind.  With  august  philanthropists,  How- 
ard or  Wilberforce,  we  may  not  class  him.  Into  that  seventh 
heaven  of  invention,  where  Milton  and  Dante  dwelt,  he  came 
only  sometimes,  not  for  want  of  power,  but  because  his  sphere 
was  a  wider  and  larger  one — he  had  business  to  do  in  the  veins 
of  the  earth  as  well  as  in  the  azure  depth  of  air.  But  if 
force  of  genius — sympathy  with  every  form  and  every  feeling  of 
humanity — the  heart  of  a  man  united  to  the  imagnation  of  a 
poet,  and  wielding  the  Briarean  hand  of  a  demigod — if  the  writ- 
ing of  thirty-two  plays  which  are  coloring  to  this  hour  the  litera- 
ture of  the  world — if  the  diffusion  of  harmless  happiness  in 
immeasurable  quantity — if  the  stimulation  of  innumerable 
minds — if  the  promotion  of  the  spirit  of  charity  and  of  uni- 
versal brotherhood — if  these  constitute  for  mortal  man  titles 
to  the  name  of  benefactor,  and  to  that  praise  which  ceases  not 
with  the  sun,  but  expands  into  immortality,  the  name  and  the 
praise  must  support  the  throne  which  Shakspeare  has  estab- 
lished over  the  minds  of  the  inhabitants  of  an  earth  which 
may  be  known  in  other  parts  of  the  universe  as  "  Shakspeare's 
world.' 


Books  Published  by  Sheldon,  Lamport  £$  Blakeman. 


MISCELLANEOUS 

ANECDOTES :  RELIGIOUS,  MORAL  AND  ENTERTAINING.  Alpha- 
betically arranged  and  interspersed  with  a  variety  of  useful  observations.  Selected  l>y 
the  late  Rev.  CHARLES  BUCK.  Illustrated  with  a  steel-plate  frontispiece.  514  p.igcs,  1'Jmo. 
Price  $1  25. 

THE  ALMOST  CHRISTIAN.  By  Rev  MATTHTCW  MEAD.  With  an  intro- 
duction by  W.  B.  WILLIAMS,  D.  D.  18mo.  Price  45  cents. 

"  Mr.  Mead  was  contemporary  with  those  great  lights  of  the  Church,  Owen,  Bunyan,  and 
Baxter.  His  works  had  the  special  recommendation  of  Richard  Baxter,  who  advised  such  an 
wished  to  place  the  best  religious  books  in  their  libraries,  to  obtain  as  many  of  Mr.  Mead's 
as  they  could  get.  It  is  full  of  thought,  ingenious  in  argument,  discriminating,  and  highly 
evangelical." 

"It  is  a  searching  treatise  on  a  most  important  subject." — Christian  Chronicle. 

"  We  hail  this  comely  reprint  with  increased  gladness,  the  more  especially,  as  it  is  very 
appropriate  to  the  times,  there  being  reason  to  fear  that  very  many  have  a  name  to  livs 
while  they  are  dead.  For  searching  fidelity  it  ranks  with  the  experimental  treatises  ol 
Baxter  and  Owen." — Christian  Mirror. 

CONFESSIONS  OF  AN  ATTORNEY.     By  GUSTAVUS  SHARP,  ESQ.,  of 

the  late  firm  of  Flint  &  Sharp,  to  which  are  added  SEVERAL  PAPERS  ox  ENGLISH  LAW  ANB 
LAWYERS.     By  CHARLES  DICKENS.   1  vol.   12mo.   Muslin,  75  cents;  Paper  50  cents. 

This  book  is  undoubtedly  by  the  same  author  as  the  :!  Experience  of  a  Barrister,"  which 
has  been  read  with  such  general  interest.  It  portrays  with  the  most  truthful  delineation, 
and  graphic  colors,  the  hardships  and  wrongs  of  the  present  system  of  legal  practice  in  Eng- 
land. The  book  has  been  attributed  to  the  author  of  the  "Diary  of  a  Physician,"  and 
there  are  scenes  in  it  well  worthy  of  the  same  skillful  hand.  The  value  of  the  volume  is 
increased  by  adding  to  it,  in  a  supplementary  form,  several  of  the  most  forcible  contribu- 
tions of  Charles  Dickens  to  the  Household  Words,  on  the  abuses  of  English  law." — N.  T. 
Courier  and  Enquirer. 

"This  book  is  filled  with  many  an  interesting  tale,  and  shows  up  somewhat  of  the  inge- 
nuity and  cunning  which  is  really  necessary  to  make  a  lawyer.  The  work  has  met  with 
extraordinary  success;  no  less  than  five  editions  having  been  exhausted  within  a  month  of 
publication." — Watertoicn  Democratic  Union. 

AUSTRALIA  AND  HER  GOLD  REGIONS.  Being  a  full  description 
of  the  geology,  climate,  products,  natives,  agriculture,  mineral  resources,  principal  cities, 
etc. ,  of  that  new  El  Dorado;  accompanied  by  a  map  of  the  country,  and  statistical  tables, 
showing  the  regulations  and  results  of  mining  operations;  cost  of  passage,  necessary  out- 
fit, and  every  particular  information,  requisite  for  those  desirous  of  emigrating.  The 
whole  forming  a  complete  guide  to  the  gold  mines.  By  R.  G.  JAMKSON,  M.R.C.S.E.,  two 
years  a  resident  in,  and  late  Medical  Superintendent  under  her  Majesty's  Commissioners 
of  Emigration  to  Australia.  1vol.  12mo.  Cloth,  price  75  cents;  Paper,  price  50  cents. 

THE  BIBLE  MANUAL.  Comprising  selections  of  Scripture,  arranged 
for  various  occasions  of  private  and  public  worship,  both  special  and  ordinary,  together 
with  Scripture  expressions  of  Prayer,  from  Matthew  Henry.  With  an  Appendix,  consisting 
of  a  copious  classiflcntion  of  Scripture  Texts  presenting  a  pystemaV.c  view  of  the  doctrines 
and  duties  of  Revelation.  P.y  Rev  W.  W.  EVAJJTS.  ICmo.  Price  $1  !>0. 

M 


Books  Published  by  Sheldon,  Lamport  fy  Blakeman. 
THE    BAPTIST    LIBRARY.      A    republication    of   Standard  Baptist 

Works.  Edited  by  Rev.  MJ«SKS.  G.  G.  SOMKRS,  W.  R.  WILLIAMS,  and  L.  L.  HII.L.  1  vol., 
royal  octavo.  $3  50.  Consisting  of  over  1300  pages,  and  embracing  the  following  works: 
Weatlake's  General  View  of  Baptism.  Wilson's  Scripture  Manual  and  Miscellany.  Booth's 
Vindication  of  Baptists.  Biography  of  Samuel  Stillman,  D.D.  Biography  of  Samuel 
Harris.  Biography  of  Lewis  Lunsford.  Backus'  History  of  the  Baptists.  The  Watery 
War.  Pengilly's  Scripture  Guide  to  Baptism.  Fuller  on  Communion.  Booth's  Pccdo- 
baptism  Examined.  Dr.  Cox's  Reply  to  Dwight.  Bunyan's  Grace  Abounding.  The  Back- 
slider; by  Fuller.  Hall  on  the  Ministry.  Hall's  Address  to  Carey.  Hall  on  Modern  Infi- 
delity. Bunyan's  Holy  War.  Hall's  Review  of  Foster.  The  Gospel  Worthy  of  all  Accepta- 
tion. Peter  and  Benjamin.  Prof.  Ripley's  Review  of  Griffin  on  Communion.  Memoirs 
of  Rev.  Robert  Hall.  Fuller  on  Sandemanianism.  Memoirs  of  Rev.  Samuel  Pearce.  Brantley 
on  Circumcision.  Covel  on  the  American  and  Foreign  Bible  Society.  Terms  of  Communion. 
The  Practical  Uses  of  Christian  Baptism  ;  by  Andrew  Fuller.  Expository  Discourses  on 
Genesis;  by  Andrew  Fuller.  Decision  of  Character;  by  John  Foster.  The  Travels  of  True 
Godliness;  by  Benjamin  Keach.  Help  to  Zion's  Travellers;  by  Robert  Hall.  The  Death 
of  Legal  Hope;  by  Abraham  Booth.  Come  and  Welcome  to  Jesus  Christ;  by  John  Bunyan. 
Biogi-aphical  Sketches  of  Elijah,  Craig,  Joseph  Cook,  Daniel  Fristoe,  Oliver  Hart,  Dutton 
Lane,  James  Manning,  Richard  Major,  Isaac  Backus,  Robert  Carter,  Silas  Mercer,  Joshua 
Morse,  Joseph  Reese,  John  Waller,  Peter  Worden,  John  Williams,  Elijah  Baker,  James 
Chiles,  Lemuel  Covel,  Gardener  Thurston,  Jeremiah  Walker,  Saunders  Walker.  William 
Webber,  Shubael  Stearns,  Eliakim  Marshall,  Benjamin  Foster,  Morgan  Edwards,  Daniel 
Marshall. 

"The  Library  is  a  deservedly  popular  work;  for  it  is  a  choice  selection  from  pious  and 
talented  productions.  The  writings  of  such  men  need  no  encomium.  Most  of  them  have 
long  been  favorably  known.  They  have  stood  the  test  of  time.  It  contains  some  rare  and 
costly  works;  some  that  are  little  known,  yet  highly  prized  by  all  who  have  enjoyed  the 
privilege  of  perusing  them.  Here  the  humblest  child  of  God  may,  if  he  choose,  secure 
standard  authors,  for  a  trifle,  and  bless  h'mself  with  a  fund  of  useful  reading,  unsurpassed 
by  any  similar  compilation  in  Christendjm.  We  cordially  approbate  the  publication.  It 
merits  a  liberal  patronage."  —  Western  faptist  Review. 

"THE  COURSE  OF  EMPIRE,"  "VOYAGE  OF  LIFE,"  and  other 
Pictures  of  THOMAS  COLE,  N.  A.  With  selections  from  his  letters  and  miscellaneous  writ- 
ings. By  Rev.  LEWIS  L.  NOBLE.  415  pages.  12mo.  Price  $1  25. 

"  All  those  who  love  to  linger  about  the  memories  of  a  good  man's  life,  and  draw  lesso is 
of  encouragement  and  great  value  from  the  records  of  his  struggles,  his  self-denials,  his  in- 
domitable perseverance,  his  beautiful  traits  of  character,  his  genius,  and  his  triumphs,  will 
eagerly  read  this  work,  nor  forget,  while  they  profit  by  its  perusal,  to  thank  Mr.  Noble  for 
the  manner  in  which  he  has  executed  his  "  labor  of  love,"  and  the  publishers  for  the  ele- 
gant and  enduring  form  in  which  they  have  given  it  to  the  public." — Albany  Express. 

"  To  all  those  who  are  interested  in  the  struggles,  the  developments  and  the  triumphs  of 
genius,  no  less  than  to  those  who  are  admirers  of  the  art  of  which  Cole  was  such  a  master, 
this  book  is  full  of  interest  and  instruction." — JV.  Y.  Courier  and  Enquirer. 

"This  is  a  book  that  every  artist  and  person  of  taste  should  possess." — N.  Y.  Express. 

"  Every  page  is  marked  with  the  impress  of  a  lofty  genius  and  the  breathing  of  a  puro 
spirit." — Albany  Argus. 

"We  deem  it  a  model  for  Biographical  Literature,  and  commend  the  work  to  our  readers 
as  one  from  which  they  may  derive  both  pleasure  and  profit." — Tlie  Churchman. 

"  We  cannot  escape  the  impression  that  one  of  the  best  and  most  guileless  of  all  the  prn 
fessors  of  his  art  in  this  country  was  taken  to  the  skies  when  Cole  passed  into  them.  His 
memory  is  a  henison.  It  is  written  with  facility  and  grace,  and  has  about  it  the  uumistake 
able  aroma  of  a  true  and  appreciative  friendship." — JV.  Y.  Independent. 

"Young  men  should  read  this  book.  It  will  show  them  what  perseverence  will 
accomplish,  and  teach  them  not  to  be  discouraged  when  overshadowed  with  the  dark  cloud 
of  misfortune-" — Cincinnati  Star. 


Books  PuUisfied  by  Sheldon,  Lamport  6f  Blaktman. 


THE  CHURCHES  AND  SECTS  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES :  Contain- 

ing  a  brief  account  of  the  Origin,  History,  Doctrines,  Church  Government,  Mode  of  Wor- 
ship, Usages  and  Statistics  of  each  Religious  Denomination,  so  tiir  as  known.  By  Rev.  I*. 
DorGi-Ass  GOKKIK.  Price  63  cents. 

"It  will  bo  found  and  prized  as  a  valuable  and  convenient  book  of  reference."— Christian 
( turner. 

"  It  is  a  book  for  all  the  world,  and  will,  we  predict,  be  found  in  every  library  throughout 
'Knglish  Christendom.'  " — IV.  Y.  Weekly  Chronicle. 

"  The  author  has  studied  brevity,  comprehensiveness  and  accuracy  ;  and  we  know  of  no 
work  so  fairly  and  fully  describing  the  history,  doctrines,  and  present  state  of  all  the  differ- 
out  denominations  of  the  country  as  this." — N.  Y.  Evangelist. 

CHRISTIAN  GREATNESS;   A  discourse  on  the  death  of  Friend  Hum- 
phrey.   Ry  WILLIAM  HAGUE,  D.  D.    Price  12£  cents. 

COMPENDIUM  OF  THE  FAITH  OF  THE  BAPTISTS.    Paper.  Price 

4  cents. — Every  Church  should  get  a  supply  for  its  members. 

LORENZO  DOW'S  COMPLETE  WORKS.    The  dealings  of  God,  Man, 

and  the  Devil ;  as  exemplified  in  the  Life,  Experience,  and  Travels  of  LORENZO  Dow,  in  a 
period  of  over  half  a  century.  Together  with  his  Polemic  and  Miscellaneous  Writings, 
complete;  to  which  is  added 

THE  VICISSITUDES  OF  LIFE.    By  PEGGY  Dow. 

"  Many  shall  run  to  and  fro,  und  knowledge  shall  be  increased. — David." 

With  an  introductory  Essay,  by  the  Rev.  JOHN  DOWLIXG,  D.D. ,  of  New  York,  author  of 
HisUiry  of  Romanism,  <£c.    Two  volumes  in  one.  8vo.  350  pp.    Embossed  binding,  embel 
lished  with  Steel  Portraits  of  Lorenzo  and  Peggy  Dow.     Price  $2  50. 
One  month  he  would  be  heard  of  laboring  for  the  good  of  souls,  in  his  own  peculiar  way, 
in  the  neighborhood  of  his  native  New  England  home  ;  the  next,  perhaps,  braving  the  frost 
and  snow  of  a  Canadian  winter;  the  next  on  his  way  to  Ireland  or  to  England,  in  the  prose- 
secution  of  the  same  benevolent  purpose  ;  and  six  months  afterwards,  perhaps,  encounter- 
ing the  dangers  and  hardships  of  a  Georgia  or  Kentucky  wilderness,  or  fleeing  for  his  life 
from  the  tomahawk  or  the  Scalping-knife  of  the  Indian  savage,  in  the  then  untrodden  wilds 
of  the  great  Valley  of  the  West. 

Pale,  sallow,  and  somewhat  consumptive  in  the  appearance  of  his  countenance  ;  dressed 
in  the  plainest  attire,  with  his  single-breasted  coat,  often  worn  thread-bare — and  in  his  later 
years  wearing  a  long  flowing  patriarchal  beard  ;  his  whole  appearance  was  such  as  to  awaken 
&  high  degree  of  curiosity  and  interest. 

Then  the  suddenness  and  the  promptitude  of  his  advent  in  a  town  or  village,  at  the  verr 
h  iur  and  minute  he  had  appointed,  perhaps  some  twelve  or  eighteen  months  before,  the 
boldness  with  which  he  would  attack  the  ruling  vices,  and  denounce  wickedness — either  in 
high  places  or  low — thegeneral  adaptation  of  his  dry  and  caustic  rebukes  to  the  sin  and  fol- 
lies prevalent  in  places  he  visited,  and  which  he  seemed  to  know  almost  intuitively  ;  to- 
gether with  the  biting  sarcasm  and  strong  mother-wit  that  pervaded  his  addresses  ;—  all 
served  to  invest  the  approach  to  any  place  of  the  "  crazy  preacher,"  (as  he  was  frequently 
called),  with  an  air  of  singular  and  almost  romantic  interest. 

Scarcely  a  neighborhood,  from  Canada  to  Georgia,  or  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Mississippi, 
that  has  not  some  tradition  to  relate,  or  some  talo  to  tell  of  the  visit  and  the  preaching  of 
J>orenzo  Dow  ;  and  scarcely  an  old  man  in  all  those  regions  that  has  not  some  one  or  more 
of  the  vi  itty  sayings  of  Lorenzo  Dow  to  relate  to  his  children  and  his  grand-children. — Extract 
from  (he  Introduction. 


Boolcs  Published  by  Sheldon,  La.mport  8$  Blakentan. 


DOMESTIC  SLAVERY  CONSIDERED  AS  A  SCRIPTURAL  INSTI- 
TUTION; In  a  Correspondence  between  the  Rev.  RICHARD  FCI..F.R,  P.D.,,  of  Beaufort,  S.  C. 
and  the  Rev.  FRAXCIS  WAYLAXD,  D.D.,  of  Providence,  R.  I.  18mo.  40  cents. 

"  In  tliis  book  meet  two  great  minds,  each  tried  Ion-;,  known  well,  clear,  culr.i  ami  strong. 
The  point  on  which  they  meet  is  a  great  one — few  so  great  for  weal  or  woe.  l^ince  it  lirst 
slioak  our  land,  the  strife,  from  day  to  day,  has  grown  more  keen  ami  more  har^h.  It 
cheers  the  heart,  when  there  is  so  much  strife,  and  so  free  a  use  of  harsh  words,  to  fee  men 
like  those  whose  names  are  at  the  head  of  this  piece  write  in  a  tone  so  kind,  and  so  apt  to  turn 
1  lie  edge  of  strife.  But,  though  its  tone  be  kind  and  calm,  its  style  is  not  the  less  strong. 
Kach  brings  to  bear  all  that  a  clear  head  and  a  sound  mind  can  call  forth.  When  two  so 
strong  minds  meet,  there  is  no  room  for  weak  words,  rich  word  tells— each  line  bears  with 
weight  on  the  main  point, — each  small  page  has  in  it  more  of  thought  than  weak  men  crowd 
into  large  i  book." — Correspondent  of  National  Intelligencer. 

"  This  is  the  best  specimen  of  controversial  writing  on  Slavery,  or  any  other  subject,  we 
have  ever  read.  The  parties  engaged  in  it  are  men  of  high  distinction,  and  pre-eminently 
qualified  for  the  task  ;  and  the  kind  and  Christian  spirit  which  pervades  the  entire  work  is 
a  beautiful  commentary  on  the  power  of  the  Gospel.  This  discussion  is  complete,  and  who- 
ever reads  it  need  read  nothing  more  to  enabe  him  to  form  a  correct  view  of  the  subject  in 
question.'' — Lutheran  Observer. 

"Its  thoroughness,  ability,  and  admirable  candor,  and  the  great  and  growing  importance 
of  the  subject,  entitle  it  to  a  universe1  circulation." — AT.  T.  Evangelist. 

THE   EPISTLE  OF    PAUL    TO    THE    PHILIPPIANS.      Practically 

explained.     By  Dr.   AUGUSTUS  NEAXDER.     Translated  from  the  German,  by  Mrs.  H.  C. 
Conant.    12mo.    140  pp.     50  cents. 

"This  work  is  exactly  what  it  professes  to  be,  not  learned  criticism,  but  a  practical  ex- 
planation of  the  Epistle  to  the  Philippians.  It  comprises  two  popular  lectures,  which  will 
not  fail  to  interest  any  intelligent  Christian  who  will  read  them  with  care.  Clergymen  will 
find  this  work  eminently  suggestive  of  new  trains  of  thought  which  may  be  profitably  used 
in  the  sacred  desk." — Literary  Advertiser. 

THE  EPISTLE   OF  JAMES  PRACTICALLY  EXPLAINED.    By  Dr. 
AUGUSTUS  NEANDER.     Translated  from  the  German,  by  Mrs.  H.  C.  Conanl.   50  cents. 

"  The  friends  of  religious  truth  will  be  glad  to  see  this  Commentary  on  the  Epistle  of 
James,  following  so  soon  on  the  Philippians.  Perhaps  no  book  of  the  New  Testament  has 
been  more  misunderstood  than  this  Epistle,  on  account  of  a  supposed  contrariety  between 
its  teachings  and  the  'doctrines  of  grace.'  A  more  comprehensive  and  philosophical 


"  Mrs.  Conant  has  devoted  her  accomplished  skill  as  a  translator,  to  a  good  purpose,  in 
rendering  into  English  this  charming  production  of  Xeander.  This  small  voiutae  succeeds  a 
r  _">iir  rmr  on  the  Epistle  to  the  Philippians,  and  is  itself  to  be  followed  by  another  on  the 
I  ir.it  Epistle  of  John — a  work  published  since  the  Author's  death.  V  e  cannot  doubt  that 
t  liese  volumes  will  be  desired  by  ministers  generally,  and  we  commend  them  to  all  thoughtful 
students  of  the  Bible." — Watchman  and  Reflector. 

THE  FIRST  EPISTLE  OF  JOHN.  Practically  explained  by  Dr.  AUGUSTUS 
XEAXDER.  Translated  from  the  German,  by  Mn.  H.  C.  Conant.  12mo.  310  pp.  I  Vic* 
So  cents. 

THE  SCRIPTURAL  EXPOSITIONS  of  Dr.  NEAXDER,  complete.  Com- 
prising tlie  above  three  bocks,  bonrd  in  one  volume.  Svo.  Price  $1  75 

y 


Boohs  Published  by  Sheldon,  Tsamport  <S/  j3t,an.eman. 


TII3  JUDSON  OFFERING.  Intended  as  a  Token  of  Christian  Sympathy 
with  the  Living,  and  a  Memento  of  Christian  Affection  for  the  Dead.  By  Rev.  JOHN'  Dow- 
IJ.NG,  A.  M.,  Author  of  "  History  of  Romanism,"  &c.  Twentieth  edition.  ISmo.  70  cents 

"  It  is  done  up  in  fancy  style,  something  after  the  fashion  of  the  annuals;  and  a  hand- 
pome  engraving,  representing  the  'Departure,'  faces  the  title.  It  is  neat  and  spirited,  and 
\ve  doubt  not,  will  meet,  as  it  deserves,  an  extensive  circulation.  The  fervent  missionary 
i>pirit  that  runs  through  its  pages,  renders  it  a  valuable  work  for  the  young;  and  we  hope 
it  will  be  selected  by  thousands  as  a  holyday  present,  instead  of  the  expensive,  but  less 
useful  annuals,  with  which  the  shelves  of  the  bookstores  are  plentifully  supplied. " — Christian 
Secretary. 

"Altogether  it  forms  an  acceptable  popular  offering,  and  has  obtained  a  wide  circulation." 
New  York  Recorder. 

"  We  are  happy  to  commend  this  volume,  both  for  the  beauty  of  its  execution,  and  for 
the  valuable  and  interesting  matter  it  contains.  Christian  parents,  or  others,  who  may 
wi«h  to  present  a  token  of  affection,  will  find  a  suitable  one  in  this  'Offering.'  " — New  Eng- 
land Puritan. 

"  It  is  composed  of  missionary  pieces,  from  the  most  pious  and  gifted  poetic  and  prose 
writers.  The  whole  breathes  a  right  spirit;  and  it  is  a  happy  thing  that  this  occasion  has 
been  seized  upon  to  give  popularity  and  currency  to  reading  of  so  pure  and  benevolent  a 
character." — Boston  Recorder. 

THE  WONDERS  OF  HISTORY;  comprising  remarkable  battles,  sieges, 

feats  of  arms,  and  instances  of  courage,  ability,  and  magnanimity,  occurring  in  the  annals 
of  the  world,  from  the  earliest  ages  to  the  present  time.  Embellished  with  several  hundred 
engravings  on  wood.  Compiled  from  the  best  authorities,  by  JOHN  FROST,  LL.  B.  1  vol 
Svo.  Price  $2  50. 

HEROINES  OF   HISTORY.    Illustrated  with  six  Steel  Plate  Portraits. 

Edited  by  MARY  1C.  HEWITT.  1  vol.  12mo.  Price,  Muslin,  plain  edge,  81  25;  full  gilt  sides  and 

edges,  $2. 

HKKOIXES  OF  HISTORY,  BY  HART  E.  HEWITT. — This  is  one  of  the  most  interesting  volumes 
we  have  had  the  pleasure  of  reading  for  a  long  time.  The  incidents  of  the  lives  of  these 
eminent  women  would  of  themselves  render  a  history  of  them  valuable,  but  when  narrated 
in  a  style  as  chaste  and  beautiful  as  that  of  Mary  E.  Hewitt,  it  is  doubly  valuable. 

Our  readers  can  therefore  procure  this  work  with  the  full  assurance  that  they  are  pur- 
chasing a  volume  which  has  merit  sufficient  to  class  it  among  the  very  best  publications 
which  have  lately  issued  from  the  press. — Syracuse  Daily  Journal. 

HKKOIXKS  OF  HISTORY  ILLI-STKATKD. — The  publication  of  this  charming  volume  has  been 
fully  appreciated  by  the  literati  of  New  York  and  has  been  just  as  it  should  be.  The  selec- 
tions of  illustrious  women  whose  heroic  lives  it  records,  are  rendered  doubly  interesting  by 
the  truthful  and  soul-stirring  incidents  portrayed  throughout  the  work.  The  announcement 
of  these  sketches  of  lives  being  arranged  by  the  fair  authoress,  (Mrs.  M.  E.  Hewitt),  is  suffi- 
cient to  command  an  extensive  sale.  The  publishers  have  ornamented  the  work  with  some 
beautiful  illustrations  of  the  principal  characters. — Day  Book. 

The  personal  and  domestic  details  interwoven  in  the  memoirs,  enliven  the  record  ef 
graver  events,  and  brighten  our  recollections  of  the  history.  The  book  is  a  charming  one, 
and  should  find  a  place  in  every  lady's  library. 

THE  HOME ;   or  Family  Cares  and  Family  Joys.    By  FREDERIKA  BREMER. 

Translated  by  Mary  IIowitL     The  Author's  Edition.    1  vol.     12uio.     449  pp.    Price  $1.' 

THE    MEMOIR    OF    MRS.    HELEN    M.    MASON.      Seventeen  Years 

a  Missionary  in  Burmah.  By  her  husband,  Rev.  FRANCIS  MASOX.  16mo.  With  a  portrait 
and  several  beautiful  engravings.  Price,  cloth,  60  cents.  Gilt  edge,  $1. 


Books  PMis/ied  by  Sltddor,,  Lamport  fy  Blakcman. 


AN  OLIO  OF  DOMESTIC  VERSES.    By  the  late  Mrs.  E.UILY  JDDSOX. 

1  vol.     l^iuo.     235  pp.     Price,  cloth  plain,  62J  cents;  cloth  full  gilt,  $1. 
We  are  confident  there  are  thousands  in  our  land  who  would  delight  in  this  volume  of 
poems  by  the  estimable  and  devoted  wife  of  one  of  the  greatest  men  of  modem  time.- . 

IRVING'S  ONE  THOISAND  RECEIPTS;    or  Modern  and  Domestic 

Cookery.  A  complete  direction  for  carving,  pastry,  cooking,  preserving,  pickliug,  making 
wines,  jellies,  &c.,  &c.  With  a  complete  table  of  Cooking  for  Invalids.  By  LUCRCTIA  IUVIXG. 
216  pp.  1-mo.  Muslin.  Price  75  cents. 

TIIE  PASTOR'S  HANDBOOK.  Comprising  Selections  of  Scripture, 
arranged  for  various  occasions  of  Official  Duty;  Select  Formulas  for  the  Marriage  Cere 
mony,  &c.;  Rules  of  Order  for  Churches,  Ecclesiastical  and  other  Deliberate  Assemblies, 
and  Tables  fur  Statistical  Record.  By  Kev.  W.  W.  EVEKTS.  60  cents. 

The  following  recommendations  from  ministers  of  different  denominations,  set  forth  the 
character  and  claims  of  the  book  : 

"  It  contains  Scriptures  arranged  for  occasions  of  official  duty,  as  funerals,  the  visitation 
of  the  sick,  the  celebration  of  marriage  ;  also  several  marriage  forms  suited  to  various  modes 
of  the  celebration  of  that  institution;  also  devotional  excerpta  for  the  celebration  of  marriage, 
for  funerals,  and  for  the  Lord's  Supper  ;  also  rules  for  professional  life  and  services,  com- 
piled from  distinguished  divines  ;  also  rules  of  order  for  ecclesiastical  and  other  deliberative 
assemblies,  together  with  various  ecclesiastical  formulas ;  and  finally,  several  tables  by 
which  may  be  preserved  from  year  to  year  a  statistical  record  of  professional  services,  of  the 
history  of  churches,  of  religious  denominations,  and  of  Christian  missions.  Though  repu- 
diating cumbersome  and  restrictive  form  books,  we  believe  that  a  book  of  this  kind  has  long 
been  felt  to  be  a  desideratum  amongst  Protestant  clergymen  of  all  denominations,  and  are 
persuaded  that  this  volume,  so  comprehensive  in  plan,  so  various  in  matter,  pointing  out 
rules  of  professional  service  approved  by  the  most  eminent  divines,  and  withal  gotten  up  in 
a.  form  and  binding  so  convenient  for  use,  will  be  found  exceedingly  serviceable  to  pastors 
generally.  We  cordially  commend  it  to  the  attention  of  all,  and  especially  young  clergymen. 
Thomas  H.  Skinner,  D.  1).  B.  T.  Welch,  D.  D. 

George  Peck,  D.  1).  John  Cowling,  D.  D. 

G.  B.  Cheever,  D.  D.  Noah  Levings.  D.  D. 

William  K.  Williams,  D.  D.  Rev.  H.  Davis, 

Chas.  Pitman,  D.  D.  Rev.  J.  L.  Hodge, 

S.  H.  Cone,  D.  D.  Rev.  Edward  lathrop, 

Thomas  De  Witt,  D.  D.  Rev.  0.  B.  Judd." 

THE  POWER  OF  ILLUSTRATION;  An  Element  of  Success  in  Preach- 
ing and  Teaching.     By  JOHN  DOWUNG,  D.D.    18mo.   30  cents. 

' '  This  is  an  admirable  book,  though  small,  and  treats  of  an  highly  important  subject, 
•which  yet  has  never,  so  far  as  we  are  aware,  been  handled  before  in  a  distinct  treatise- 
Would  that  tl">re  were  some  law  to  compel  every  candidate  for  the  ministry  to  possess  this 
little  volume  !  We  imagine  that  there  would  be  less  complaint  of  the  dullness  of  sermons.'1 
Boston  Recorder. 

"We  would  recommend  its  careful  perusal,  not  only  to  every  clergyman  and  Sabbath- 
School  teacher,  but  to  every  public  speaker.  No  one,  we  think,  can  give  it  a  reading  with- 
out being  convinced  of  the  great  advantage,  not  to  say,  necessity,  of  illustration,  in  order 
to  ensure  success  in  teaching  or  preaching. 

"  The  writer  attempts  to— I.  Explain  the  science  of  illustration,  and  specify  the  principal 
classes  of  analogies  which  it  employs,  with  examples  for  the  use  of  each.  II.  What  is  meant 
by  the  power  of  illustration,  and  gives  some  directions  for  its  successful  cultivation  and  im- 
provement."— Alabama  Baptist. 

"  Modifications  have  been  made  for  the  general  benefit,  and  to  adapt  the  principle  to 
teachers  of  every  gradation,  including  especially  those  of  the  Sabbath  School.  The  author 
has  done  a  good  service,  by  furnishing  the  pregnant  hints  and  significant  examples,  ivhici. 
will  raise  thought  and  incite  to  eifort,  to  make  the  acquisition  of  the  power  of  illustration. " 
Clt.risl.ian  Mirror. 

' '  Dr.  Dowling  treats  his  subject  con  amore,  and  we  hope,  for  goodness'  sake,  ho  may  suc- 
ceed in  convincing  a  great  many  clergymen  and  other  public  speakers." — Christian  hiquirer 

"  Every  Minister  of  Jesus  Christ's  Gospel  should  be  possessed  of  this  work.  It  is  the  most 
complete  instructor  of  parabolical  composition  that  we  have  ever  studied." — BaylUlTdctjraph. 

X 


Books  Published  ly  Sheldon,  Lamport  £$  Blaktman. 


HOMOEOPATHIC  PRACTICE  OF  MEDICINE.  A  book  for  the  Family. 

By  XI  Aims  FRKUfiii,  M.D..  Embracing  the  history,  diagnosis,  and  tivntmcnt  of  diseases  in 
general;  including  those  peculiar  to  females,  and  the  managemor.  of  children.  1-mo. 
Muslin,  $1  50.  Svo,  $'2. 

Kia'OJiJiK.xn.vTKO's  FKOM  SKVKIUL  OF  OUK  MOST  nisn.vGrisiiKD  rjucrmo.vKss,  SOME  OF  WHOM  ARB 
AISO  AUTHORS. 

From  f.  Vanderlurg,  M.  D. 

New  Haven,  .rjin.  1'Jtli. 
"  I  doubt  not  the  history  of  medical  science  will  record  the  influence  of'your  work  through 

centuries  to  come."  

From  Alfred  Freeman,  M.D.,  48  East  Nineteenth  Street.. 

New  York,  Pec.  2?,  1853. 

';  I'r.  M.  Freligh, — I  have  examined  your  volume  on  '  The  Homoeopathic  Practice  of  Medi- 
cine,' with  great  pleasure  and  satisfaction.  It  is  well  adapted  to  serve  the  three-fold  pur- 
pose intended."  

From  C.  C.  Kiersted,  M.D.,  145  West  Thirty-fourth  Street. 

"  I  regard  it  better  adapted  to  the  wants  of  the  student  than  any  other  extant.  Almost 
indispensable  to  the  young  practitioner,  and  better  calculated  for  the  laity,  than  any  other 
work  with  which  I  am  acquainted." 


From  G.  Lorillard,  M.  D. 

Bhinebeck,  Dec.  15,  1853. 

"  Dr.  Freligh  has  succeeded  admirably  ill  carrying  out  the  design  of  his  Homoeopathic 
Practice  of  Medicine.  It  is  truly  a  text-book  for  the  student,  '  a  concise  book  of  reference 
for  the  profession;'  and  by  its  simplicity,  setting  forth  the  various  conditions  of  disease, 
and  the  adaptation  of  the  remedies,  place  it  foremost  as  a  domestic  guide." 

From  R,  Barllett,  M.  D.  Harlem,  Dec   10,  1853 

"I  regard  'Homoeopathic  Practice,'  by  Dr.  M.  Freligh,  as  a  'desideratum.'  It  is  more 
complete  than  any  other  similar  work." 

From  Hudson  Kinsley,  AI.  />.,  Ill  Amity  Street. 

New  York,  Dec.  23.  1853. 

'•  l>r.  Freligh.  Dear  Sir, — I  have  examined  your  '  Homoeopathic  Practice  of  Medicine  ' 
v.'iili  increasing  pleasure,  and  I  unhesitatingly  pronounce  it  one  of  the  very  best  guides, 
now  extant,  for  domestic  use." 

From  Geo.  BeaJdey,  M.  D.,  35  Clinton  Place. 

New  York,  Jan.  14,  1854. 

"  It  is  a  work  that  has  been  long  needed  by  the  profession,  and  in  my  opinion,  adds  much, 
and  strengthens  a  system  which  only  demands  that  clear  and  enlightened  view  which  you 
have  given  to  it,  to  disperse  all  the  hasty  conclusions  and  misunderstandings  in  reference 

to  it."  

From  Samuel  B.  liarlow,  M.  D.,  222  Tuiclfth  Sired. 

New  York,  Jan.  17,  1854. 

"Dr.  M.  Freligh.  Dear  Sir, — I  gladly  tender  you  my  most  hearty  commendation  of  the 
work.  Its  arrangement  is  excellent,  and  there  is  a  perspicuity  in  the  indication  of  remedies, 
which  is  unequaled  in  any  work  of  the  kind  with  which  1  am  acquainted.  I  think  it  is 
destined  to  an  emminent  usefulness  in  the  hands  of  students  and  practitioners  of  the  Ho- 
moeopathic Art,  as  well  as  to  the  lay-practitioner.  I  wish  you  success  in  the  publication." 

From  C.  Kiersted,  M.  D.,  West  Tldrty  fourth  Sired. 

"  A  careful  examination  of  the  System  of  '  Homoeopathic  Practice  of  Medicine  '  by  Dr.  M. 
Freligh,  enables  me  to  recommend  it  as  a  work  far  superior  to  any  other  extant;  and  the 
accuracy  of  its  description  of  diseases,  and  the  concise  adaptation  of  remedies,  must  rccoui 
mend  it,  not  only  to  the  laity,  but  also  to  the  regular  practitioner." 

On.vioxs  OF  THE  PRESS. 

From  the  Buffalo  Express. — "  It  is  intelligent  and  intelligible— treating  every  ailment  with 
precision,  and' entering  into  details  that  leave  no  room  for  questions  or  doubts.  It  traces 
each  disease  from  its  first  symptoms  to  the  last  stage;  describes  its  various  mutations,  and 
points  out  the  exact  remedy  which  it  is  necessary  to  apply,  according  to  its  cause  and  pro- 
gress. We  regard  it  as  the  very  book  that  was  wanted,  and  welcome  it  as  a  messenger  of  good. 

Also  The  Ulster  Republican.— "  This  is  doubtless  the  most  perfect  work  of  thekterl  T^ 
issued." 


*  Books  Published  ly  Sheldon,  Lamport  tj-  Llukeman. 
THE  LAND  OF  THE  (LESAR  AND  DOGE.    Historical  and  artistic, 

personal  and  literary.     By  Wn.  FURXESS,  Esq.     SS4  pp.  12mo.  Price,  $1.     •y 

"  His  descriptive  powers  are  of  the  first  order,  and  he  has  the  taste  to  select  the  most 
striking  points  to  bring  forward.  We  predict  for  this  work  a  popularity  beyond  that  of  thtj 
mere  crowd  «f  hooks  of  travel." — Albany  Express. 

THE  LIFE,  CHARACTER,  AND  ACTS  OF  JOHN  THE  BAPTIST. 

and  the  relation  of  his  Ministry  to  the  Christian  dispensation,  based  upon  the  Johannes 
der  Tiufer,  of  L.  vox  ROHDEX,  by  the  Rev.  WM.  C.  DUXCAX,  II.  A. ,  Professor  of  the  Greek 
and  Latin  Languages  and  Literature  in  Louisiana  University.  1  vol.  12mo.  261  page.-*. 
Price  75  cents. 

"The  work  as  we  have  it  in  this  volume,  and  so  far  as  we  have  been  able  to  examine  it, 
is  thorough,  learned  and  decidedly  able." — Puritan  Becorder. 

"  It  is  the  only  complete  work  on  this  subject  in  English,  and  we  need  no  other;  we  hope 
no  one  will  fail  to  procure  the  work." — AT.  Y.  Chronide.- 

"This  is  an  acceptable  addition  to  religious  literature — indeed  the  only  work  in  the  lan- 
guage exclusively  devoted  to  the  life  and  ministry  of  the  Baptist.  It  is  based  upon  von 
Rohden's  German  treatise,  which  Neander  so  warmly  commends;  and.  indeed,  the  whole 
of  von  Rohden's  work  is  comprised  in  this  volume,  but  with  very  considerable  additions  of 
original  matter,  which  give  it  increased  value  to  the  biblical  student,  and  ako  better 
adapt  it  to  the  wants  of  the  general  reader." 

MEMOIR  OF  S.  B.  JUDSON.    By  Mrs.  E.  C.  JUDSOX.    Forty  thousand 

gold.     1  vol.  18mo.  300  pages.  Goth  60  cents.  Cloth,  gilt  edge,  SI. 

"Rarely  have  we  read  a  more  beautiful  sketch  of  female  loveliness,  devoted  piety,  mis- 
sionary zeal,  fortitude,  sacrifice  and  success,  than  is  here  drawn  by  a  pen  that  is  well  known 
to  the  readiug  world.  We  trust  its  wide  perusal  will  awaken  the  mission  spirit  in  the  hearts 
of  thousands." — New  York  Observer. 

" '  Beautiful  exceedingly,'  is  this  portraiture  of  female  loveliness,  piety  and  heroism,  drawn 
by  the  graceful  pencil,  and  embellished  by  the  delicate  hues  of  the  f.iir  author's  poetic  fancy. 
All  who  are  acquainted  with  the  eventful  life  of  that  heroine  of  missionaries.  Ann  Hasscl- 
tine  Judson.  will  be  doubly  interested  in  this  memoir  of  one  whose  gentleness,  patient  enilu- 
rance  of  suffering,  and  cultivated  tastes,  renderered  her  no  unworthy  successor,  either  in 
domestic  seclusion,  or  on  the  field  of  action,  of  that  energetic  martyr  in  the  missionary 
cause. ' ' — Newark  Advertiser. 

"  We  commend  this  book  as  the  portraiture  of  a  very  lovely,  accomplished,  nnd  Christian 
woman." — Christian  Register. 

"  In  preparing  this  work,  the  gifted  authoress  found  a  theme  worthy  of  her  classic  pen, 
nnd  thoteands  will  rejoice  in  the  addition  she  has  given  to  religious  literature,  and  to  mis- 
sionary biography.  We  shall  be  very  much  mistaken  if  this  beautiful  volume  does  not  se- 
cure a  very  wide  and  extensive  circulation." — New  York  Baptist  Register. 

"  lake  all  the  other  writings  Of  this  distinguished  author,  this  book  most  happily  com- 
bines interest  with  instruction.  It  cannot  be  read  without  adding  refinement  to  the  feelings 
and  making  the  heart  better  ;  and  if  commenced,  will  not  be  laid  aside  till  fiuj.shed.' — Neio 
York  Evening  Post. 

"  We  hail  this  '  Memoir'  with  much  pleasure,  and  tender  our  thanks  to  the  enterprising 
publishers  for  the  copy  sent  us.  It  is  a  memoir  of  a  very  interesting  personage,  written  In 
a  highly  fascinating  style,  bya  polished  and  justly  distinguished  writer." — Christian  Index. 

"  Tin's  little  volume  is  full  of  religious  thought  and  experience,  and  i.s  so  judiciously  and 
tastefully  compiled  that  the  reader  cannot  fail  to  derive  both  pleasure  and  benefit  from 
its  perusal." — The  Banner  and  Pioneer. 

'•  A  most  admirable  little  book  it  is.  and  its  publication  is  a  valuable  addition  to  the  list 
of  religious  memoirs." — Southern  Preslylerian. 

"  '  Memoir  of  Sarah  B  Judson,  by  Fanny  Forrester,'  is  before  us.  We  have  perused  the 
pa?es  of  this  popular  authoress  with  unusual  interest ;  and  unhesitatingly  pronounce  ilia 
'  Memoir'  in  our  judgement  a  work  of  decided  merit — nnd  not  inferior  to  the  rco^t  iii.i.-.Lt-d 
production  from  the  pen  of  this  graphic  writer." — M'Graiui-Hle  Express. 

T 


s^  Published  by  Sheldon,  Lamport  §*  Blakeman. 


THE  NAPOLEON  DYNASTY;  or  the  History  of  the  Bonaparte  Family. 

An  entirely  new  work  by  the  Berkeley  Men.     With  22  authentic  Portraits.     1  vol.     8vo. 
6-24  pp.     Trice,  S2  50. 

A  very  handsome  volume,  in  paper,  typography  P.nd  plates,  greets  us  under  the  title  hcvt 
given — and  after  the  numberless  books  heretofore  published  in  the  shape  of  memoirs,  bio- 
graphies and  histories,  about  the  Bonapartes,  and  him  in  particular  who  was  the  Bot)»- 
parte — it  will  be  fonnd  fresh  and  new  in  many  of  its  details,  and  attractive  by  its  dashing 
style  and  rapid  narrative.  All  the  members  of  the  family,  including  the  young  brevet  lieu- 
tenant in  the  U.  S.  Army,  who  has  just  been  graduated  from  West  Point,  and  who  bears  tiro 
name  bolh  of  his  grand-father  and  his  grand-uncle — Napoleon  Jerome  Bonaparte — arc  duly 
chronicled  here  ;  and  among  the  documents  new  to  us,  and  we  believe  before  unpublished, 
contained  in  this  work,  is  the  correspondence  between  Napoleon  and  Pope  Pius  VII.,  rela- 
tive to  the  divorce  which  Napoleon  urged  the  Holy  Father  to  pronounce  between  Jerome  and 
his  American  wife,  Hiss  Patterson — and  the  absolute  refusal  of  the  Sovereign  Pontiff  to  com- 
ply with  his  request.  There  is  much  dignity  and  manliness  in  the  letter  of  the  Pope,  and 
exceeding  littleness  in  that  of  the  Emperor. 

Josephine,  Hortense,  Maria  Louisa,  Joseph  Beauharnais,  Murat,  and  indeed  all  the  race, 
figure  in  these  pages;  and  each  has  a  portrait  said  to  be,  and  with  great  probability,  accu- 
rate likenesses." — Courier  and  Enquirer. 

"We  heartily  commend  it  to  the  attention  of  our  readers,  as  one  of  the  most  valuable 
\vorkswhich  has  recently  been  published." — Evening  Mirror. 

"  A  work  of  deep  interest  and  undoubted  authenticity.  "—Journal  of  Commerce. 

"  The  Berkeley  Men  have  produced  a  Book  which  forms  a  valuable  addition  to  the  bio- 
graphical literature  of  the  world,  and  bears  on  its  face  the  impress  of  great  historical 
research  and  ability.  There  is  not  a  dry  page  in  it." — Sunday  Atlas. 

'  This  work  is  surpassingly  beautiful." — Boston  Evening  Gazette. 

'  We  feel  assured  that  we  may  commend  it  for  its  eloquent  and  brilliant  character  as  a 
literary  work.  Pens  of  more  than  ordinary  power  having  evidently  been  engaged  in  it3 
production." — Philadelphia  Courier. 

"  The  design  of  the  book  is  carried  out  with  great  skill;  the  style  is  terse,  but  glowing; 
the  typography  of  the  highest  order,  and  the  portraits  from  original  sources,  executed  with 
care  and  truthfulness.  We  do  not  see  how  it  can  fail  to  acquire  a  popularity  and  circula- 
tion seldom  equaled  by  any  biographical  production." — JV.  T.  Times. 

NOUVELLETTES  OF  THE  MUSICIANS.    By  Mrs.  E.  F.  ELLET,  Authoi 

of  the  "Women  of  the  Revolution."  1  vol.   8vo.  353pp.    Muslin,  Gilt  Edge.   Price  $1  75. 

Embellished  with  portraits  of  Hayden,  Handel,  Sebastian  Bach,  Mozart,  Beethoven,  and 

Francis  Liszt. 

PRKFACE.  In  the  following  series  of  Nouvellettes,  something  higher  has  been  attempted 
than  merely  the  production  of  amusing  actions.  Each  is  founded  on  incidents  that  really 
occurred  in  the  artist's  life,  and  present?  an  illustration  of  his  character,  and  the  style  of 
his  works. 

The  view  given  of  the  scope  and  tendency  of  the  works  of  different  artists,  and  their  rela. 
tion  to  personal  character,  may  also  enforce  a  striking  moral;  showing  the  elevating  in- 
fluence of  virtue,  and  the  power  of  vice  to  distort  even  the  loveliest  gift  of  Heaven  into  a 
curse  and  reproach. 

Of  the  tales— "Tartini,"  "Two  periods  in  the  life  of  Hayden,"  "Mozart'*  first  visit  to 
Paris,"  "The  Artist's  Lesson,"  "The  Mission  of  Genius,"  "The  young  Tragedian,"  and 
"  Tamburini,"  only  are  original;  the  others  are  adapted  from  the  "•Kunsiiwixllen  "  of  Lyser 
and  Rellstab. 

The  sketch  of  the  great  Pianist  Liszt  is  translated  from  a  memoir  by  CHRISTER*,  a  distin- 
guished professor  of  Music  in  Hamburg. 

THE  NEIGHBORS.  A  story  of  every  day  life.  By  FREDERIKA  BKKMEB. 
Translated  from  the  Swedish  by  Mary  Houritt.  Author's  Edition,  with  a  new  Preface,  I  vol 
12ino  439  pp.  Trice  $1. 

V 


Books  Published  by  Sheldon,  Lamport  Sf  Blakeman. 


MAPLETON;  or  More  "Work  for  the  Maine  Law    By  PHARCKLLUS  CHURCH. 

1  volume,  12mo.,  of  about  four  hundred  and  fifty  pages.  Price,  $1.   Cloth.   Four  Editions 
have  been  called  for  in  a  few  weeks. 

What  the  Press  says  of  it. 

"  No  book  that  we  have  recently  read  has  so  wrought  upon  our  feelings  as  this."—; JMM 
Traveller. 

"  It  is  a  powerful  work,  combining  the  dramatic  interest  and  vivid  character- painting  of 
fiction  with  the  deep  insight  and  comprehensive  views  of  a  mature  and  able  thinker."— 
/*'.  T.  Recorder. 

"Kemarkable  for  the  insight  which  it  exhibits  into  human  character,  and  powerful  in 
tlie  grasp  of  the  subject  which  is  manifested,  Mapleton  comes  to  us  with  a  freshness  of 
thought,  a  vigor  of  expression,  and  a  power  of  argument,  calculated  at  once  to  charm  the 
fancy,  to  attract  the  imagination,  and  to  influence  the  judgment." — Mass.  Life  Bool. 

'•The  narrative  is  so  diversified  in  its  scenery  and  persons,  the  plan  so  striking,  the  Geld 
to  large,  and  the  descriptions  so  graphic,  the  progress  towards  the  result  itself  so  unex- 
pected— at  least  it  was  so  to  me — that  I  cannot  but  think  the  author  is  conferring  a  benefit 
on  the  United  States,  at  least,  if  not  on  the  world." — Communicated  to  thefuri/an  Recorder 

"  Though  a  fiction,  the  characters  are  drawn  to  life,  and  we  see  plainly  before  us,  pano- 
rama-like, in  living  pictures,  the  horrid  effects  of  the  use  of  intoxicating  liquors.  It  is 
not  onlr  a  very  interesting  book,  but  one  peculiarly  adapted  to  the  times." — American  News, 
Keene,  ~N.  H. 

"  The  writer  has  portrayed,  in  a  clear  and  energetic  style,  the  different  characters  which 
are  introduced,  and  sustains  them  with  great  tact,  having  evidently  seen  life  above  stairs 
and  below  stairs  too." — Maine  Farmer. 

li  It  is  written  with  a  good  deal  of  power,  possesses  a  tragic  interest,  and  portrays  only 
too  vividly  the  direct  and  indirect,  the  immediate  and  remote  consequences  of  the  fearful 
evil  it  would  help  to  remove." — Boston  Christian  Register. 

•'This  powerful  work  is  destined  to  exert  a  mighty  influence  upon  the  masses  towards 
the  enactment  and  enforcement  of  the  Maine  Law.  Already  has  the  press  throughout  the 
country  teemed  with  its  praises. It  presents  many  graphic  pictures,  and  the  story  is  ex- 
tremely interesting,  ahd  is  well  interwoven  with  arguments  which  make  it  a  valuable  a« 
well  as  interesting  work.  We  have  read  it  with  as  much  satisfaction  as  we  took  in  poring 
over  the  pages  of  '  Uncle  Tom. '  " — Mass.  Teacher. 

"A  book  of  thrilling  interest,  written  in  a  pleasing  style,  and  with  great  power." — 2V 
Adam's  Weekly  Transcript. 

"Written  in  a  pleasing,  familiar  style,  and  in  many  passages  most  thrilling." — Eastern 
Argus. 

"  It  has  the  merit  of  transcending  in  extent  of  plot,  and  felicity  of  narrative,  all  its  com 
peers.  There  is  much  to  commend  in  the  clear  and  vigorous  style  of  the  composition." — 
'Jhunton  Daily  Gazette. 

"  Many  of  its  scenes  are  sketched  with  the  skill  of  a  artist." — Dedham  Democrat. 

"  It  is  well  written — abounding  in  impressive  lessons." — Worcester  National  JEgi*. 

"  A  story  of  thrilling  interest." — Christian  Freeman. 

"  It  is  well  calculated  to  arouse  and  keep  awake  the  masses  on  the  subject  of  temper- 
ance."— Plymouth  Rock. 

"The  work  is  well  worth  a  perusal,  and  we  assure  our  readers  that  if  they  road  the  firrt 
three  chapters,  they  will  not  fail  to  read  the  remainder." — Andooer  (Mass.)  Advertiser. 

"  The  plot  is  well  laid;  the  moral  is  excellent.  It  leaves  the  mind  of  its  reader  in  a  pure 
and  healthful  state." — Star  Spangled  Banner. 

"  This  is  a  vigorously  written  volume,  '  painting '  in  vivid  and  glowing  colors  the  horrors 
of  the  Rum  Traffic." — 

"  The  book  is  fall  of  dramalic  interest  which  never  flags  from  commencement  to  close." — 
Tanlxe  Blade. 

"  Mapleton  is  a  powerfully  written  work.  It  is  a  book  that  ought  to  be  circulated  far  and 
wide." — Literary  Museum. 

"  Its  style  is  exceedlingly  attractive;  its  incidents  are  adroitly  combined,  and  its  temper 
partakes  less  of  fanaticism,  than  of  an  honest  conscientious  Christian  conviction  that  in  • 
temperance  is  the  greatest  evil  that  afflicts  humanity." — Albany  Journal. 


•Jifornia,  Los  Angele1 


College 
Library 


University  of  California,  Los  Angeles 


L  005  432  127  8 


College 
Library 


PR 
99 
G39 
ser.3 


A  l  i 


